


Project Chimera

by aj_hofacre, lydiamartin (dwinchester)



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dark Angel, Dollhouse, Glee, Supernatural, Teen Wolf (TV), The Internship (2013), The Maze Runner (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, M/M, Sheriff Stilinski's Name is John, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-21
Updated: 2016-04-21
Packaged: 2018-06-03 16:38:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 31,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6618229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aj_hofacre/pseuds/aj_hofacre, https://archiveofourown.org/users/dwinchester/pseuds/lydiamartin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Out in the Preserve, there's a large clearing, surrounded by a fence. Nobody in Beacon Hills knows what goes on in the buildings within the fence, but they're about to find out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Stiles woke up when the alarm sounded for all of the Betas in the building. He got up, changing into his uniform and making his bed. He stood at attention, waiting for his orders for the day. It was Monday, which usually meant he had to report to the classroom, for education. Once in awhile, someone from his building would be given a new assignment and moved to the Omega building. When that happened, he never saw them again. He hadn’t cared much when Joshua had been selected, but he didn’t like when Skyler had to leave. She was always happy and made him smile. 

Scott stood at attention opposite Stiles, his head lifted high. He detested Monday morning assignments, but had learned very quickly not to protest about it. Instead, he kept his mouth clamped shut and his eyes straight ahead, toward Stiles. 

Stiles blinked in Morse Code, a trick he had taught Scott when they were seven. If he had scored three points higher on his test at age five, he would have been placed with the Alphas; he deliberately guessed wrong on a few test questions to make sure he could stay with his friend. They hadn’t had names back then. He had been ‘X11-101,’ the first kid born in nineteen ninety-five. Lydia had named Stiles when he was eight, which was why he liked Lydia as much as he had. ‘What’s wrong?’ 

Scott blinked back steadily, a small, slightly grim smile on his lips as he did so. ‘It’s Monday again.’ He replied simply. ‘You know what that means for me today.’

‘I won’t let them take you.’ Stiles glanced around to make sure no adults were watching, then motioned to a boy at a bunk nearby. “Hey!” He whispered. “Switch him! They’ll never know the difference.” 

The boy gave Stiles an unimpressed look. “Why would I do that?” He asked, glancing between the two.

“I’ll give you all of my candy rations for a month.” Stiles insisted. “That’s why.” 

The other boy studied Stiles for a long moment. “Two months. And I’ll take his place for those entire two months. We’ll rework the deal every two months after that.”

Stiles nodded, not hesitating. “Go, Scotty.” He urged his friend. “Be safe.” 

Scott licked his lips nervously and nodded, taking the other boy’s position and clenching his hands into shaky fists briefly before letting them relax again.

Professor Harris stood at the front of the room, near the door, flanked by a couple of commanding officers. “Anyone here with the designations of one through fifty should report to the front of the room, up here by me.” He started checking off numbers as each Beta approached him. By the time he was done, there were eighteen teenagers standing by him. He smiled at the group. “Congratulations, you’re the first group of Betas to make it to graduation. You’re to report to the cafeteria for further instructions.” He looked at the remaining Betas. “This time next year, another group of you will be graduating. Betas numbered fifty-one through one hundred, prepare yourselves for assimilation.” He motioned to the soldiers to take the teens with them, then started wandering around the room. He stopped between Stiles and the guy pretending to be Scott, turning toward the darker-skinned boy. “You should gather your things. You need to report to the Omega building.” 

Stiles bit his lip, hoping that the boy wouldn’t correct Harris. 

The other boy’s lips tightened, and he eyed Stiles darkly. His shoulders stiffened, and he gave Harris a short salute. “Yes, sir.” He said quietly.

Stiles did his best to look upset as the guy he barely knew, save that his name was Andrew, gathered Scott’s things and was escorted from the room. He knew that the boy was going to become an Omega, even though he wasn’t entirely sure what that meant. “Do the rest of us need to report to the classroom now, sir?” He asked Harris. 

“Actually, given today’s events, we’re going to take you in groups and have you re-tested.” Harris glanced up from his clipboard. “We’ll start with fifty-one through sixty.” 

As Harris walked away, Stiles turned his head to communicate with Scott. ‘You’re in that group now. Andrew was fifty-three. If this means something is changing, I’ll find you. I swear I will.’ 

Scott nodded, though he looked even more terrified than he had before. He’d barely passed the first tests, and was lucky he hadn’t been dragged off to be an Omega right from the start. If he failed now, with designate X11-89’s scores instead of designate X11-53’s… He didn’t know what would happen to him, save that he would be considered a failure. Steeling himself, he gathered together with the others of his new group, and glanced back at Stiles. ‘I know you will.’

Harris walked with the first group of Betas, his mind focused on the fact that he needed to pass at least one from each group of ten into the Alphas, so long as their scores were high enough. The ‘graduates’ were having their memories wiped in the Omega building, and they were being dropped off at different locations around the country. Some had jobs arranged for them, others weren’t so lucky. But none would remember their time in the facility. “We’re going to start with a cognitive exam.” He called out, gesturing for them to sit at the desks. He passed out test booklets. “When you have completed this and gotten approval to move on, please go see Brunski in the weight room.” He paused, staring at the Betas. It took him a moment to realize why there were only six with him. Not everyone remained a Beta when the Omegas needed a replacement, and a couple of the clones had tested as Alphas when they were five years old. It just meant that he would definitely need to pass someone from this group, since there were so few options. While these first Betas were being re-tested, the Omegas were being transported to a secure location, for auction. It had become too much of a risk to keep the ones they had; people in the town were asking questions and it was past time for an overhaul of their stock of genetically-modified humans. On the other hand, he thought to himself, smiling faintly - rejecting all six would mean less work for him later on. But he had to let the test results speak for themselves. Either way, the pool of Betas was about to decrease exponentially. He had been given very clear orders to eliminate Betas until only fifty remained. 

Alec glanced around the room instead of starting his test right away. He wasn’t very familiar with the other people, but he thought he knew some of their names. He smirked to himself when he saw Scott. He knew Andrew, and Scott might be able to fool the professor, but Alec knew better. Still, he appreciated a good con when he saw one, so he kept his mouth shut and opened the test booklet, chuckling. 

Hector raised his hand, smiling nervously. “Can I go to the bathroom?” 

“No.” Harris said sharply. “Not until you’ve completed your exam.” 

From the back corner of the room, Elaine squeaked and raised her hand, waving her arm frantically as the sound of urine hitting paper practically echoed in the room. 

“I finished my test.” Hector laughed. “Go on and grade it.” He picked up the dripping wet packet of papers and flung it at the instructor. 

“Fine.” Harris eyed the mess, which hadn’t landed anywhere near him, with distaste. “You fail. You get a zero. No need to see Brunski, you’ll be an Omega now.” He pressed a button near his desk, staying silent until two guards had dragged Hector from the room. “And now we’re down to five.” 

Alec breezed through his test, stepping over the piss-soaked booklet on the floor and sneering down at it as he handed his papers to Harris. He waited as the instructor ran the scantron through the machine. 

Harris glanced up at Alec and nodded. “Go find Brunski. I’m sure you know by now that it’s just a formality for you, but -” He took Elaine’s booklet and put her answer sheet into the machine as he spoke. “Everything has to be documented.” 

Dulcinea was the next to turn her sheet in, and she waited anxiously for the results. She doubted that she would pass on to becoming an Alpha, she didn’t know anyone who ever had. Still, if they were retesting for Alphas and not looking for Omegas, she knew that it was more likely that the criteria had changed. 

“Elaine, you didn’t pass.” Harris spoke loudly, almost sounding proud of the teen’s failure as he put Dulcinea’s sheet into the machine. He pressed a button to have Elaine dismissed, not looking as the teary-eyed girl was led away by the guards. “How is it possible that some of you are actually getting dumber?” The teacher scoffed. “Dulcinea... you didn’t fail, but you’re not being accepted into the Alpha program.” He made a note on his tablet. “Go to breakfast, there’s no need for you to test your physical capability.” As the girl ran from the room, he looked at Missy and Scott. “If you’re having trouble deciding which bubble to fill in for the answers you don’t know, I wouldn’t worry too much about it. A blank answer counts as a wrong answer, and if you don’t know the correct answer, you may as well not waste my time. Or yours.” 

Missy got up from her desk a moment later and set the paper down in front of Harris. “It would have been easier to complete this without you yapping.” She smiled. 

“You’ve passed.” Harris said a moment later. “Go on to the weight room.” When Scott was the only Beta left in the room, Harris got up from his desk and walked toward him, legitimately concerned. “You should know that I’m only allowed to retain fifty Betas by the end of the day. If you don’t feel that you can pass the physical portion of the Alpha exam, I could at least guarantee you a spot as a Beta. It’s going to be based on where you rank in test scores. I won’t help you rank number one. If you think you can get there on your own, you’re welcome to try. But I would at least secure you a spot in the top twenty-five, and you wouldn’t even have to bother with Brunski.” 

Scott looked up at Harris and exhaled slowly before pushing the booklet toward him. “I, uh… I don’t think I need you to.” He admitted. The answers to the questions in the booklet had come easier to him than he’d expected - and what that might mean scared him, especially if it meant that he’d fallen right into the criteria to be shifted to the Omega program. He didn’t doubt for an instant that he wouldn’t be allowed to see Stiles again before he was moved. “It took me a little longer than I expected, but I’ve finished.”

Harris nodded, taking the booklet and sheet from Scott. He fed the answer sheet into the scanner and sat down at his desk to wait for the results. After a long moment of staring at the screen in surprise, he looked up at Scott. “Well, apparently I was mistaken. You’ll need to report to Brunski, after all.” He cleared his throat, a slight smirk on his face. “Congratulations... Andrew.” 

Scott swallowed, paling a little. “Yes, sir.” He said quietly, before taking a deep breath and turning to walk out of the room. His mind was racing at the implications of what he’d just done. Making his way toward Brunski’s room, Scott stepped inside, looking around warily before he took a seat.

Brunski sneered at the newcomer. “Five laps around this room is a mile. I’m already sick of giving this speech, Harris needs to learn to dismiss in groups. For being an educator, he’s an absolute fuckwit. You’re going to run the mile without stopping or slowing down, and you’re going to do it in under four minutes. Do it in five to ten, you’re a Beta. Do it in more than ten, I’ll throw things at you until you cry and then I’ll send you to the Omega sector. Should you make it through that mile unscathed, you’re going to lift two hundred pounds without struggling. Again, do it and you’re promoted. Don’t do it and I’ll laugh at you while they’re strapping you into that Omega chair. That’s where your clone ended up today, isn’t it? You wanna go copy him?” He laughed at his own joke. “Get going.” 

Scott felt sick as he quickly bolted. If he could time this right, he could just go back to being a Beta without anything having changed at all - he hoped. Closing his eyes tightly, he followed the lap mindlessly, running until his legs felt like they would shake and break apart under him. He hadn’t paid attention to the time, but he hoped he’d managed to come in at some point after five minutes. He’d moved as quickly as he could while at the same time trying to pace himself so that his lungs didn’t feel like they were burning, and as he crossed the fifth lap and came to a shuddering stop in front of Brunski, he bent forward to catch his breath, his hands on his knees.

Brunski’s mouth hung open as he stared at the test subject. “That was the fastest time I’ve ever seen in the time I’ve been here. One minute, three seconds.” 

“What?” Scott blurted, staring back at Brunski. “That’s not right. That’s not possible, are you sure your timer is on the right settings?”

“Are you calling my judgment into question?” Brunski snapped. “Most people would be thrilled to be Alphas.” He blinked. “Were you... did you go slower than you could have?” 

Scott nodded slowly, looking bewildered. “I… tried to pace myself.” He admitted weakly, his mind racing.

“Do you want to run it again, or do you want this time to stand as your record? Because I have to tell you, it doesn’t matter to me either way.” Brunski blurted. “You’ve already passed.” 

Scott hesitated, looking around before looking back at Brunski. A voice in the back of his head pushed at him, telling him to try, that he would never know what he could be capable of otherwise, while another voice told him to leave it, that he’d already gotten past one test, and to conserve his energy for the next. He nodded slowly. “Leave it at this, I think.” He said quietly, still confused. Whatever was happening - well, he’d never had the chance to test for Alpha before. He wasn’t sure where any of this was coming from, but he’d been more worried that he would end up an Omega and would never see Stiles again. Licking his lips, he stared at Brunski. “Let’s move to the next test.”

*****

Stiles paced nervously around the room as the X-elevens with designations of eighty-one through ninety were taken. The room was emptying out slowly, and he knew his turn would be soon, but he couldn’t make himself sit still. He had thought that he would see Scott by now, but not even the Betas were returning to the room. It occurred to him then that maybe nobody was allowed to be a Beta anymore, and he sat down on his bunk and whimpered. 

Alex stared at Stiles, frowning a little before he folded his hands together and scowled. He wasn’t going to let himself get psyched before the latest round of tests. He had hopes of becoming an Alpha, if only to make sure that he would never fall to an Omega, like several dozen other Betas had recently.

Stiles glanced up at the other Beta and shook his head. “I’m guessing you don’t have friends.” He muttered, getting up and starting to pace again. He started paying attention to the other faces this time around, not having bothered to observe more than a few outside of Scott, like Lydia who had named him, and Skyler who looked like her, but a little older. Skyler was gone now and Lydia was in the group after him, but she was talking to a few other girls and didn’t seem even half as worried as Stiles was. He paused when he saw two guys that looked like him, and not much older. “...hey.” 

Stuart raised an eyebrow and Stiles and smirked faintly. “Hi. Don’t you look nervous.”

“My best friend hasn’t come back yet and he has asthma.” Stiles blurted. “I don’t know what happens to the Omegas, I just know that we never see them again and I don’t want to never see him again.” 

“Okay, come here and sit with us.” Thomas motioned to Stiles. “Just calm down. Stuart will break protocol and come find you to tell you where your friend is, instead of going right to his assigned location. He lives for that sort of thing.” He grinned at Stuart. 

Stuart grinned back, wiggling his eyebrows. “It’s not as if anyone’s willing to try and stop me.” He laughed.

Stiles looked confused as he sat down. “Are you two Alphas, then?” He paused. “Stupid question. I’m not thinking very clearly. My friend is named Scott, by the way.” He shook his head. “No. Andrew. Sorry. It’s... uh...” 

“We won’t say anything.” Thomas said quickly. “I don’t like breaking rules, but today has everyone kind of freaked out. It’s their fault if they let someone slip through the cracks.” 

“And more power to us if we can keep sowing chaos seeds.” Stuart replied bluntly. “Everyone needs to be shaken up a little bit. The rules are more like guidelines, anyway. No one actually needs to follow them, but they’ve got everyone so scared about breaking the stupid rules, that they do follow them anyway. It just makes it easier for the professors to choose who to weed out eventually.” He shrugged a shoulder, then looked at Thomas. “Like us. How often did they try to get rid of one - or both - of us?”

“At least a dozen.” Thomas smiled. He glanced at Stiles, silently daring him to say something as he leaned against Stuart, turning his head for a kiss. 

Stiles’ eyes widened, but he didn’t have a chance to speak before an explosion shook the building. He was on his feet instantly, yelling to be heard over the panic that had resulted. “Hey! Grab the emergency supplies and hit the tunnels!” 

Stuart grasped Thomas’ arm, surging upward. He planted a hard kiss on the other man’s mouth before bolting into action. “Go!” He yelled at Thomas. “I’ll find you!”

Thomas nodded frantically, grabbing Stiles’ arm and pulling him along as he ran with the crowd, down the hall to the stairs down to the tunnels under the building. They connected almost all of the surrounding town, but Alphas were the only ones allowed to use them, and only for specific orders. 

Harris yelled for silence when the room was full of test subjects. “Testing will continue here. The Omega sector was attacked, but no real damage was done, and the people responsible have been apprehended. If you’ve already been tested, report to the room at the other side of the tunnel and wait. Brunski will be checking your designations over there, so don’t think you can avoid this.” 

Stiles took a deep breath and looked around for Scott. He knew he would have no choice but to take the test now, and he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do. He had already thrown the Alpha test once. He would do it again, but he wasn’t sure if he should be testing to become a Beta or an Omega. 

Stuart pushed his way into the room minutes later, looking around for Stiles and Thomas, and he silently put a hand on Thomas’ shoulder to get his attention. “Got him.” He told Stiles, his lips quirking. “Looks like your boy is one of us. I tried making my way toward the testing facilities, but I backtracked when I saw Brunski coming back this way. Managed to sneak a peek at his notes. I don’t know what your Scotty-boy put in his Wheaties today, but he broke the record on the mile-run. Even I couldn’t have gone that fast, and I finished in a minute and fifty-five on the nose.”

Stiles stared in disbelief, then burst out laughing. “Holy shit.” He wiped at his eyes. “Okay, I know what I have to do.” He nodded, hugging Stuart without thinking much about it. “Oh. Uh... sorry not sorry?” He laughed again and made his way through the crowd to get a test booklet from Harris. 

Thomas grinned and put his arms around Stuart. “Come on, let’s go introduce ourselves to this Scott guy. It’s our job as older brothers.” He glanced up when guards entered the room, spreading out along the wall, on either side of the doorway. His smile faded. He knew what that formation meant. Or at least, what it could mean. “Crap.” 

“Any X-eleven with the designation of one-fifty-one through two-fifty needs to report to us right now and wait for further instruction. You will not be testing today. Repeat, you will not be testing today.” Deucalion smiled cruelly. “The others may continue testing. And yes, this includes Alphas within those numbers. Hurry up, verify yourselves and step into the hall.” 

Stuart stared at Deucalion, and then glanced at Thomas. “That’s… that’s excessive, isn’t it?” He murmured to the other boy. “That’s… god, that’s a freaking purge.”

Thomas nodded. “I don’t think this attack was as contained as they’re claiming.” He muttered, looking around as people he knew made their way to the guards, then left the room. “I don’t know if there’s anything we can do.” He frowned. “Not without them shooting us.” He gulped. 

Stuart frowned, putting his arm around Thomas. “We don’t have any back-up, either.” He looked around the remaining group. “I doubt anyone here would be willing to go head-to-head with the guards. And if it was more than just the two of us, I’d be diving in head-first and saying ‘fuck it.’” He exhaled, hugging Thomas lightly. “Let’s go find our little brother.” He murmured. “We’ll have another one soon, and they’ll need our support.”

Thomas nodded and walked with Stuart, toward the guards. “We’re Alphas.” He gestured to his brother and himself, then gave their designations. 

The guard nodded to them and pointed to the room on the other side of the tunnel. “You need to go over there. You should have been there already.”

“Today’s been weird.” Thomas murmured, giving the guard a charming smile and leaving the room, glancing behind him to make sure Stuart was still with him. 

Stuart ambled slowly after Thomas, his gait lazy and relaxed. He winked at the guard he passed, and immediately spotted Scott as they entered, just by the confounded look on the boy’s face. “He looks like he was slapped by a mackerel.” Stuart snickered, gesturing.

Thomas burst out laughing. “Hey, Scott?” He called out, approaching the boy. “I’m Thomas and this is Stuart. We’re ninety-nine and one-hundred. We passed the Alpha test when we were five, and we just met... oh, god. We didn’t even get his name.” 

Scott was upright within a second, staring at the two boys in front of him. “Did he look like you?” He asked slowly, raising his eyebrows.

Stuart paused. “Oh. Right, yeah, he did.” He nodded.

Scott relaxed. “Stiles. His name is Stiles. He’s just - is he - where is he? Is he testing?”

“He is, yes.” Thomas assured Scott. “And Stuart already found out you passed, so Stiles is going to try to pass to become an Alpha, too.” 

Scott snorted out a laugh. “Oh, there won’t be any trying. He’ll pass.” He said confidently, nodding. “Trust me.”

Stuart looked amused. “Well, okay.” He looked at Thomas and said seriously, “He’ll pass, dude.”

Thomas grinned. “But will he pass?” 

Stuart cuffed him up the side of the head lightly. “Don’t be ridiculous, Little Bro already said he would. God, you’re so cynical, Thomas.” He teased, wrapping an arm around Thomas’ waist.

Thomas pouted at Stuart. “Why do you have to be so mean to me in front of our newest sibling, hmm?” 

Scott stared at them both with wide eyes. “Um. You’re… you know you guys aren’t actually my brothers or anything, right?” He asked carefully, not entirely sure what he was witnessing.

Stuart snorted and ignored Scott, cupping Thomas’ face. “Because you get that adorable fucking pout on your face, and fuck knows I can’t resist that.” He murmured, leaning in to kiss Thomas slowly.

Thomas kissed back, putting his arms around Stuart. 

“Ignore them.” Lydia advised as she approached Scott. “We’ve all been dealing with it for years now. It’s got to be something in their particular strain of DNA. Does Stiles act like this? I named him, you know.” 

Scott stared at Lydia with his mouth open, his eyes continuously returning to Thomas and Stuart before finally settling on the redhead. “Uh. No. No? Not… not that I know of.” He stopped, and backtracked. “I mean, yes, I know you named him, no he doesn’t act like that. That I know of.”

“You know he threw the first exam for you, don’t you?” Lydia smiled knowingly. “When he figured out that you wouldn’t make the run in the specified time, he got answers wrong on purpose and kept pace with you. Our so-called superiors may not have caught on, but I remember how determined he was. And we were five.” 

Scott ducked his head, smiling softly. He nodded. “Yeah… I kind of caught on eventually. Sometimes he would talk about how hard the tests were, but he barely looked like he was out of breath. And -” He trailed off. “Wait, how did you know I wasn’t - I mean, I’m supposed to be Andrew, god, did everyone know? Did I really suck that much at pretending?”

“No, it’s not that.” Lydia laughed. “Andrew talks differently than you do.” 

Scott let out a deep breath. “Oh. Do you… do you think that’s going to be a problem? Me taking Andrew’s place, I mean? He…” Scott paled. “Oh, god. They were going to - I was going to be downgraded to an Omega. If I hadn’t switched Andrew - if Stiles hadn’t…” He shook his head furiously. “God. This place is determined to ruin me.”

“I don’t think they’ll care.” Thomas said gently. “You broke the record for fastest mile today, you could probably set Harris’ classroom on fire and they’d let you get away with it.” 

“How’d you do it, anyway?” Stuart asked Scott warily, squinting at him. “One minute and three seconds, that’s… Well, you’ve embarrassed me, for one thing.”

Scott looked at Stuart and Thomas, shaking his head. “I don’t know? I don’t… I don’t know what I did. I just remember telling myself to go fast, but to pace myself so that I wouldn’t keel over dead. I was trying to finish in five minutes, or a little bit more, so that I could make it back to Beta range, but… Brunski was staring at me when I finished and said that I’d broke the record, and I asked him if he was sure, because it wasn’t possible, I haven’t even done the trial in so long. There was absolutely no way I - and he asked me if I wanted to run it again because I sort of called his judgment into question, and I told him to take me to the next trial instead.”

Stuart gaped at Scott, blinking. “Are you meaning to tell us that you could’ve gone faster? That you didn’t even hit your stride, and you purposely slowed down?”

Lydia regarded Scott with an intrigued smile. “How much faster do you think you could have gone?” 

“Well…” Scott started slowly, looking around at the three of them. “I tried to set my pace to about half of what I thought I could run, and that was… I was thinking I’d be able to finish at just above five minutes. And… I guess… if I tried again, I could make the run in just under a minute?” He looked hesitant and uncertain, biting his lower lip.

“I’d like to see that. Not right now, of course. But later on.” Lydia murmured. “I wish I could have talked to you before today. I would have told you to do whatever it took to stay a Beta.” She bit her lip. “But you’ll be okay, you have friends among the Alphas already. Some people haven’t been as lucky.’ 

Scott’s shoulders fell a little. “What’s going to happen to me?” He asked her softly, swallowing hard.

“I don’t know for certain what it’s going to mean for you.” Lydia admitted. “But we’re sent out on missions. High-profile government officials want us to take care of problems for them, and they’re willing to pay top dollar to the corporation responsible for this place. I’ve heard plenty, but they don’t know that I know.” She said quietly. “It’s better than what the Omegas get, I suppose.” 

Scott looked down. “I think that depends on what exactly we know the Omegas get.” He said softly.

“The same thing as the Alphas, except they don’t know they’re doing it.” Lydia sighed. “They take their memories. Leave them blank. I’m not sure how. And then they give them new ones and make them think they’ve got an entirely different existence. They’re rented. Sometimes they’re bought outright, and then the Betas replace them.” 

Scott looked sick. “That’s completely insane.” He muttered, rubbing at his head. He looked around, hoping he would see Stiles soon, the revelation about what actually happened to the Omegas - and more than some of the Betas - making him feel ill.

“How do you know all of this?” Thomas asked quietly, looking around to make sure they weren’t being heard. 

“I hear things.” Lydia repeated. “I know I sound like I’m insane, but I do. I know a lot of secrets that the people here don’t want getting out, and I’ve used it to my advantage when I’ve had the chance. I know I could leave and stay gone, if I wanted to. But it means removing my tracker and staying hidden, and I’d rather be confined to this building and sent out on missions than stuck in the shadows for the rest of my life.” 

Stuart nodded along slowly. “There are worse options than this.” He sighed. “At least we’ve got a roof over our heads and three square meals.” He shrugged. “I’d rather do their dirty work than go into hiding and try to fight for survival.”

Lydia nodded, but had a faraway look in her eyes. She spoke in a whisper. “They’re relocating the Elevens that just left. Dropping them off in different places. They’ve given them false histories to remember, to let play out. And they’re taking the trackers. They’re just... abandoning them wherever there’s a large enough city for them to get lost in. With so few people here now, they’ll probably start looking for new Omegas.” 

Scott faltered. “Can they really do that? Is that - is that what happened to us? They just picked us up when we were kids and brought us here?”

“Scott, we were all born here.” Lydia said patiently. “We’ve all lived our entire lives here, except for the Alphas and Omegas who leave for assignments. But you, being a Beta, you’ve never been outside of the fence, have you?” 

Scott shook his head. “Never.” He said quietly. “I knew there was an outside. I just… I never saw it.”

“Well, you will now.” Lydia murmured. 

Stiles rushed into the room, sweaty and out of breath. He put his hands on Scott’s shoulders, slumping forward and wheezing a little. “I did... I did it.” He laughed hoarsely. “And then I ran all the way here to tell you. Holy shit, dude.” 

Scott exhaled in a burst of relief, and threw his arms around Stiles, hugging the other boy tightly. “Oh my god.” He laughed, patting Stiles’ back roughly. “I would have run all the way to tell you but Brunski all but kicked me in here when I finished.” He paused. “And I was freaking exhausted. God. I’m so freaking glad you made it.”

“Me too.” Stiles smiled at Scott. 

“Alphas, report to your living quarters.” Harris called out. “The danger has passed.” He handed a printout to Deucalion as he spoke. “Sir, that’s everyone that still ranks as a Beta. Should I begin preparing the first twenty-six for Omega work?” 

Deucalion held his index finger up as he read over the list, then nodded. “Make the other twenty-four handle the clean-up from the vandalism, would you? It’s a good thing that those idiots had no idea what they were actually blowing up. We’ll need to pave over that part of the lot, possibly put in something to keep our Betas busy.” 

Thomas listened carefully, tightening his grip on Stuart’s hand. 

Stuart squeezed Thomas’ hand back, exhaling slowly. “Jesus.” He muttered quietly. “They actually blew up the Omega quarters and now they’re talking about it like it’s not a big deal? Like…” He trailed off, gritting his teeth. “Like they’re easily replaced.”

Scott looked confused and worried at the same time. “What does this mean? What’s happening, what’s he saying?”

“He’s saying that most of the people who are still Betas are just going to become Omegas now. They just dumped off the ones they had, and they’re already replacing them.” Lydia whispered. “We should go. I don’t want them asking us why we’re still here.” She walked out of the room and through the tunnel, toward the stairs. 

Scott nervously grabbed a hold of Stiles’ arm and tugged him along, following after Lydia quickly.

Stuart wrapped his arm around Thomas’ shoulders. “We could stay.” He suggested in a low voice, looking at the other boy. “Try to ferret out a little more information. What do you think? I’ll do whatever you want to do.”

Thomas nodded, turning and pressing his lips against Stuart’s. He listened to the conversation taking place near him, trying to hear over the sound of other Alphas talking as they left the room. 

“It could take all night to wipe the minds of the Betas from that list.” Harris murmured. “Is there any way I can get someone from another facility to come assist? Maybe Los Angeles or Seattle?” 

“Kali and Ennis would laugh at you for daring to suggest it.” Deucalion shook his head. “You’ve been with us since the beginning, why would you ask such a stupid question, Adrian? I could see to it that Marin gives you a dose of adrenaline, if you think you can’t stay awake while you’re simultaneously running a wipe on five of them at a time. That’s only six sessions, including the solitary designated Z, by the end of it.” 

“Yes, but the damage to the building has had an impact on the structure below, where we do all of our work.” Harris argued. “You can’t possibly expect the entire system to run at full capacity. Not without getting some technical assistance.” 

Deucalion exhaled slowly, staring at the scientist. “Then you get the Alphas to assist you and you remind them that any discussion with the others about what they’ve seen will result in them being in the seats they’ve helped to repair. I don’t have time for this, I have to contact everyone and let them know what to expect.” He strode out of the room. 

Stuart slowed his lips against Thomas’ and pulled back to look at him warily, though he kept himself in close proximity in order to look like they were still kissing. “What do you think?” He asked quietly. “Should we be among the first to offer up our services?”

Thomas nodded and pulled away to look at Stuart for a second, then he was running up a different flight of stairs than the ones Deucalion and Harris were using. He motioned to Stiles, Scott and Lydia, glancing to make sure Stuart was close by before he began speaking. “They’re going to ask us to help repair the damage to the Omega sector. If we can get a good look at it, we can see how it works and maybe find a way to reverse it.” 

Scott cleared his throat. “You think we can do that? Reverse whatever they’ve done to the Omegas, bring them back?” He glanced at Lydia. “Wouldn’t that just make things worse for them? I’m not trying to be a downer, really, I just…” He sighed. “Well, I guess there was a reason I was never pulled into any of the Alpha trials before.”

“We could at least prevent them from being able to use our brothers and sisters as sex toys or weapons.” Lydia mused. “But if we’re going to do this, we need an escape plan and we need it as soon as we’re done altering their devices. We won’t be able to stay here after this. They’d tranquilize us and dump us somewhere, no memories of any of this and we’d be away from each other.” 

Thomas bit his lip. “If some of us stay here and figure out how to get out through the tunnels, and convince the other Alphas and Betas to leave with them, then...” He looked at Stuart. “Are you with me on this? You’re better at the tech stuff than I am. And we’ll take Scott.” He glanced at the new Alpha. “Is that okay? You can run faster than anyone else, you can get yourself somewhere safe if this goes sideways.” 

“I’m - I mean…” Scott opened his mouth, glancing at Stiles. “As… As long as Stiles stays with Lydia, then… I suppose, yeah, that’s okay.” He swallowed and nodded at Thomas. 

Stuart clapped a hand on Thomas’ back. “And you know I’m with you.” He nodded. 

“Okay.” Thomas murmured. “Then you two,” he told Lydia and Stiles, “get everyone else out of here, through the tunnels. After the way things went today, the guards are going to be sweeping the grounds. They won’t look for anyone down there.” He got to his feet just as Harris walked into the room and called for volunteers. 

Stuart stepped forward, a cheeky smirk on his face. “Aw, Harris, what did you break now?” He asked, raising his eyebrows at the man. He lifted a hand. “You know I’ll be there.”

“Me too.” Thomas spoke up. “How many people do you think you’ll need? We were hoping to welcome the new Alphas tonight.” 

“Six, at most.” Harris nodded. “That should be more than enough, actually.” 

“Well. In that case, leave it to us. We’ll get you the others.” Stuart nodded, and then made a show of turning to see Scott and jolting in surprise. “Oh, look, here’s one!”

Scott smiled nervously, standing at attention. “I’d like to help. As much as I can.”

Lydia tried not to laugh as she watched the guys leave the room a moment later. She turned toward Stiles. “You go get the Betas, you’ve spent more time with them than I have. I’ll convince some of the Alphas to get moving right now.” She walked over to a small group of them, interrupting with a friendly smile on her face as she started talking. 

Stiles slipped out of the room and went into the Betas’ dorm room, quickly explaining what was going on. 

*****

Hours later, as the sun was rising, Thomas gave a mournful look to the tiny group of survivors. When Harris realized what they were really doing, he called for the guards. Thomas, Stuart and Scott had no choice but to run, even as shots rang out behind them. The twenty-six would-be Omegas had been executed, and the battle had only just begun. One of the guards in the Omega sector radioed to a guard monitoring the Beta wing, and the Betas who were trying to escape with Stiles had been murdered. 

Stiles had a bullet in the back of his right calf and another in his left shoulder. He wouldn’t have made it out alive if it hadn’t been for a couple of other Alphas carrying him into the tunnel. The Alphas who had been waiting to help escort Betas were the next to be gunned down. Twenty-four hours earlier, there had been two hundred and fifty teenagers living in the Chimera Project facility. Now, they were down to thirteen and hiding out in an abandoned apartment building in the town. 

Scott rubbed Stiles’ back gently, looking miserable. “I didn’t think all of this would happen.” He said softly. “There were so many of us, and now there just… there just isn’t.” He furrowed his brow, wrapping a hand around Stiles’ as he tried to come to terms with the situation as it was now. 

“If it makes a difference, most of them are alive out there.” Lydia said hoarsely. She had been screaming almost nonstop and didn’t want to talk about it, even if she had been able to. “They might not remember where they came from, but maybe they’re better off.” 

“Enough of this.” Thomas blurted. “We need rest. We need supplies, yeah?” 

“We already searched the building.” Buffy called out wearily, rubbing her arms. She was cold. “There’s nothing here. No blankets or anything. And we don’t know if we can even trust anyone out here. I’m pretty much done so much as looking at guns from now on. And anyone that uses them.” 

Stuart stood up. “Well, I’m not sitting here and fucking freezing to death overnight. If anyone wants to come with me, they can, but I’m finding a nice big retail store to knock over for a couple thousand dollars and supplies to tide us over until we can get the fuck out of here.” He glanced at Buffy in concern, and then down at Thomas worriedly. “Seriously, I’ll even steal a damn van if I have to, just to get all of it back here. Who’s coming with me?”

Thomas smiled. “I’ll come with you.” He nodded. “Somebody has to watch your back or you’re going to be arrested in two minutes, flat.” He stood up. “We won’t be long. A few hours at most.” 

Scott nodded at them. “Make sure you bring back medical supplies, too, not just food and sleep stuff.” He looked down at Stiles again in concern.

Thomas nodded back. “I was planning on it. We’re just as worried about him as you are.” He paused. “Well, maybe not. But it’s close.” He left the apartment, taking the stairs down to the ground floor instead of using the elevator. 

Stuart jogged after Thomas, looking around the interior of the building with narrowed eyes. When he got to the ground floor, he stopped and sighed. “I know Buffy mentioned not wanting to look at guns, but I really think we’d be better off if we had a couple of weapons around. Maybe we can get her a crossbow or something, I don’t know. I’m planning to grab a computer for myself. And we might as well grab what we can from a pharmacy for Scott. What do you think?”

“Yeah, we should hit a few stores downtown. The ones that aren’t even open yet. It’s barely six.” He pointed at the sun’s position in the sky as they got outside. “There’s a sporting goods store and a drugstore that way. And we’ll get whatever else we can find while we’re in those. The computer... we’ll find you something.” Thomas turned toward Stuart, brushing his lips against his lover’s. He had wanted Stuart since before he even understood what it meant. More than once, Thomas had been used in high-risk situations, to stop people with too much power. Or at least, too much power for Project Chimera’s liking. But he had a different mission altogether when he was fourteen and came back feeling shaken up by it. He still didn’t like discussing it, but he had been decidedly more clingy with Stuart since that time. “Deucalion’s going to be looking for us pretty soon, we have to hurry up. Probably scatter. We should get... cell phones?” He gave Stuart a questioning look. “Radios? I just don’t want them picking up on our frequency and finding us faster. And we need to ditch our trackers.” 

Stuart didn’t look happy with his next suggestion. “I’ll have to break into a doctor’s office, I guess. Maybe grab some tools, a way to… get rid of the trackers.” He grimaced. “Burner phones, maybe. Walkies, just in case.” He rubbed at his forehead, running his fingers into his hair and causing the strands to stick straight up. “Computer will have to wait. So will transport. If we can only grab what we can carry and make it back to the warehouse before anybody else sees it, it’ll have to be without cars. We can worry about those next.” He leaned forward and kissed Thomas once more. “We’ll be okay, babe. I promise.”

Thomas smiled. “I believe you.” He nodded. “Let’s get moving.” He started toward downtown, frowning down at the uniform that he knew was going to give him and Stuart away pretty easily. His gaze swept the street in front of him, and he motioned to Stuart to follow him as he walked up the steps to a house where nobody was home. After breaking the window and letting himself in, he went looking for something else to wear. 

Stuart groaned to himself quietly, shaking his head. “I can’t believe I forgot about clothes. Christ.” He muttered, moving toward a bedroom and pilfering through the drawers. He paused, and then looked at Thomas, shaking his head. “Babe, change of plans. Look for bags, stuff everything in the bags. We aren’t the only ones who’ll need clothes. Everyone can bitch about what they want to wear later, and then we can stop and get new things, but we’ve gotta move.”

Thomas went into the kitchen and came back with some grocery bags. “Here.” He started filling them with clothing. “We’ll need to get food, too. And scissors.” He went looking for the items he had mentioned, coming back with them and some medical supplies. “Go find a computer.” He murmured. “We’re better off just getting what we can from here, for now. We can either go back out tonight after dark, or send someone else out to get what we can’t find. We probably should still make two more stops, but this is good for now.” 

Stuart nodded. “Sounds good to me.” He agreed, and began looking around the room to gather up things he might have missed. Everything he found, he piled carefully onto the nearest clean surface he could find for Thomas to bundle up. He ended up finding a laptop tucked under the sofa in the living room, and carried it to the bedroom as well before he went for the kitchen. “Check and see if there are any hiding spots in any of the rooms. Maybe we can find some cash.” He opened the fridge and surveyed the inside, grimacing a little at the slim offerings before shrugging, sighing, and sorting through what he could find.

Thomas went into the master bedroom and started going through the jewelry box and various purses, taking any money he could find. He tucked it into the pockets of the oversized jeans he was wearing, then found a baseball cap and pulled it on, hiding his eyes. He laughed at his reflection, but decided to keep the hat on. 

Stuart walked into the room, several bags in his hands, and looked up at Thomas. He stopped, and then grinned faintly. “Christ. You’re fucking adorable. Come on, babe.” He kissed Thomas briefly, and then nodded to the gathered items on the bed, starting to pack them up. He paused and stared at the bed for a moment, and then abandoned the bags before gathering the edges of the heavy comforter together, with everything inside. Quickly stripping the remaining sheets off of the bed, he shoved them into the comforter as well. “Are there any other beds in this place?” He asked.

Thomas nodded. He left the room and came back a few minutes later, his arms loaded with blankets and sheets. “I think I can get us a car and save us the walk back.” He ran downstairs and grabbed the keys from the bowl near the door, wandering through the house until he found the entrance to the garage. The car didn’t have much gas in it, but they only needed it to get them a couple of miles down the road, anyway. As fast as they could both run, it wouldn’t be anywhere near as easy with all of the things they wanted to carry. 

“You’re fucking amazing.” Stuart told him, carrying the remainder of the things they’d gathered after Thomas. “Pop the trunk. Is there anything else we need, or did we get everything we could now?”

Thomas opened the trunk, thinking. “Laptop, canned goods, can opener, plates, bowls, spoons, forks, bread and cheese. And we have the blankets, the sheets, clothes, band-aids, peroxide, tweezers and scissors. We still need weapons and more medical supplies than what I could find. Hey, wait.” He ran back into the house and came back with a bottle of whiskey. “Best I could find. It’s not as good as actual medication, but we’ll improvise.” 

“Better than anything else I saw in there.” Stuart laughed. “And it’s multi-functional.” He rubbed at his chin, tossing everything he’d gotten inside. “I think next time, we really should go for a retail chain. I can hack the cameras from here -” he tapped the laptop, then grimaced. “Hopefully. And we can get in and out without anyone being any wiser. Cash, weapons, groceries, and hell, maybe a portable tv or something.” He looked at Thomas. “And we should eventually make a decision with everyone else about where we’re going to go.”

Thomas nodded, smiling. “I think the tv doesn’t really qualify as a necessity, but if we’re going to raid a big store like that, we’re bringing everyone with us.” He leaned toward Stuart for a kiss, then realized the hat was in the way. He laughed and took it off. “We should get birth control for the girls, or let them get their own, I guess? Now that we don’t have twenty-four hour access to medical care, they’ll need to keep themselves supplied with everything.” 

Stuart blinked. “Fuck. Yeah, we’re going to need to get the girls some other supplies, too. Tampons and shit. Condoms, too, just in case.” He leered at Thomas playfully. 

Thomas smirked back at Stuart. “Not for you or me.” He shook his head, then got into the car and pressed the button to open the garage door. “But I hope they understand if we slip away for a little while, once Stiles gets those bullets out and he’s resting comfortably.” 

“If they don’t, they can be the ones to make the mistake of walking in on us.” Stuart grinned, climbing into the passenger side and patting Thomas’ thigh.

Thomas leaned toward Stuart for another kiss, then drove out of the garage and pressed the button to close the garage door behind him before he turned and drove back to the apartment building. “We’ll have to ditch this car somewhere. I’ll drop it off and come back, after we’re done unloading it.” 

“God knows it’s gonna have it’s own fucking tracker on it.” Stuart muttered, squeezing his lover’s knee. “Alright, maybe we unload this thing, drive it to a car lot, and then one of us will have to… I don’t fucking know, hotwire a new one before we dump this one and get the hell out of town or something.”

“Yeah.” Thomas nodded. He parked the car and got out, opening the trunk and gathering as much as he could carry before he went up the stairs. As Lydia opened the door for him, he heard one of the other guys call out ‘Daddy’s home!’ He snorted and shook his head, handing out supplies. “How is Stiles?” He asked Lydia quietly. 

“Sleeping fitfully. You weren’t gone that long. There hasn’t been a change.” Lydia murmured. 

“Well, that’s good, though. It’s better than him getting worse.” Thomas grabbed the scissors, bandages and the whiskey. “Okay, get his shirt off of him. We’ll get the one in his shoulder, first.” 

Scott nodded and moved to cut off Stiles’ uniform shirt, carefully cutting around the wound and tossing the bloody material to the side.

“Sorry, little brother.” Thomas murmured, pouring some of the alcohol over the wound before he tipped a little more into Stiles’ mouth to keep him sedated. He took a deep breath and used the point of the scissors to widen the wound, trying to ignore the pained scream that Stiles made, even as he slept. Thomas pulled the bullet out with the tweezers. He turned his head and took another couple of deep breaths, then went back to cleaning and bandaging the wound. One advantage that all of them had was rapid healing. Not as rapid as they all would have liked, but Thomas knew that Stiles’ wounds would be practically nonexistent in less than a week. He knew better than to drink too much alcohol before he continued, but he was feeling shaky and wasn’t sure he could handle removing the second bullet, so he reached for the bottle and unscrewed the cap, looking down at the amber liquid. 

Stuart came up behind Thomas and put a reassuring hand on the other man’s shoulder, squeezing lightly. “Deep breath, babe. Take it easy. You can do this, no problem.” He smiled. “Remember how many bullets you’ve had to pull out of my ass.”

“This isn’t the time for one of your freaky, pervy sex stories, Stuart.” Erica, one of the other Alphas, commented as she moved toward the doorway and peered in at the lot of them. “Put away your vibrator and your hard-on and let your boy-toy do his job already.”

Stuart scowled at her, but pressed a kiss to the top of Thomas’ head.

Scott stared at them, shaking his head and sighing as he clasped Stiles’ hand gently from the boy’s other side.

Stiles whimpered, his brow furrowing. 

“Thanks.” Thomas murmured to Stuart, using the scissors to make another incision. He extracted the second bullet, then doused the wound in more whiskey, moving back suddenly when Stiles kicked at him reflexively. 

“That fucking hurts!” Stiles screamed. “Asshole.” 

Lydia rushed forward and put her hand over his mouth. “You’re going to get us caught and murdered. Shut up.” 

Stiles stared up at her, but nodded. 

Lydia moved her hand away from his mouth. “We need a heat source for the food you brought.” She sighed. “I appreciate that you went out and got it, but cold, congealed soup in a can isn’t going to help any of us.” 

Scott looked at Lydia. “We could use the cigarette lighter in the car, maybe?” He suggested.

“It won’t last long enough.” Stiles murmured, wrapping a hand around Scott’s wrist. He slid his thumb over his best friend’s pulse point on the inside of his wrist. He gave Scott an appreciative smile. “It we keep it contained, we could get a fire going in here. The tub, maybe.” 

“Out on the balcony.” Lydia mused. “It’s concrete. And the risk of smoke inhalation is decreased by it actually being outside.” 

Stiles rolled his eyes at her, but smiled when Lydia laughed. 

“I just… meant that we could use the cigarette lighter to start the flames, at the very least.” Scott murmured, staring at Stiles’ hand on his fixedly. “There’s plenty of paper scrap all over this building that we can use as a starter. And the massive hole in the wall suggests that there are loose bricks laying around somewhere. We find those, take them outside onto the balcony and build a miniature pit, then gather some of those paper scraps, twigs, logs, anything we can find that could burn for a while, and use the cigarette lighter to light it up.” He twisted his hand around to twine his fingers with Stiles’, his thumb gently stroking the inside of his best friend’s palm.

Stiles smiled softly and nodded. “Sorry I didn’t catch what you were saying before, I’m a little big drunk. Bit. Little bit.” He snorted, then laughed. 

“I didn’t give you that much!” Thomas protested. 

“Never had it before.” Stiles slurred. “Little bit is a lottle bit.” 

Scott laughed quietly, bending down and pressing his forehead against Stiles’.

Stuart looked amused. “Oh, you poor little lightweight. We’re going to have to build up that tolerance when we get the chance.”

“Okay.” Stiles murmured, blinking. “But later.” 

“Yes, later.” Thomas retorted, shaking his head in disbelief. He got up and started spreading out sheets and blankets on the floor for everyone. Even though it was daylight, they hadn’t slept. “I think we should sleep in shifts. Half up, half down.” He called out, feeling a little uncertain that the group would listen to him. “I don’t normally... I might be doing this wrong.” He murmured. “But obviously, Stiles and Buffy need sleep more than any of the rest of us. So four or five more.” 

“I’ll stay up.” Scott said softly, nodding and shifting until he had Stiles’ head in his lap.

Erica watched the two of them with a small smile. “Yeah, same here. We’ll keep an eye out.”

Thomas watched for a moment, wondering if anyone else was going to sleep. But everyone else seemed preoccupied with standing guard or cooking food, so he turned toward Stuart and motioned for his lover to follow him. 

Stuart grinned and followed Thomas silently.

Thomas led the way to an apartment one flight down, kicking the door open when he realized it was locked. “It’ll be nice to have actual privacy for once. Trying to be quiet in the room with all of the other Alphas was impossible.” 

“You’re telling me.” Stuart muttered, shaking his head. “Like we really needed to hear half a dozen of them yelling at us to shut up and be quiet, or to hurry up because the rest of them were trying to sleep.”

Thomas spread a blanket out, then shrugged out of the oversized shirt and jeans he had stolen. 

Stuart followed his lead, tossing the clothes down into a pile before he leaned over Thomas and kissed him deeply. “God, I’ve fucking missed you.” He muttered, tilting his head to the side to suck at Thomas’ throat.

Thomas put his arms around Stuart, grinding up against him. “I’ve missed you, too.” He nodded. “God, that last mission. I was gone three weeks and I got back just in time for all of this?” He waved a hand to indicate the past couple of days. “If we’d had time, I would’ve tackled you in the tunnels. But then they started shooting again, so that wasn’t an option.” 

Stuart snorted. “Well. We don’t have to deal with the missions anymore, at least. Fuck.” He muttered, reaching down and wrapping his hand around Thomas, stroking him gently. “Just glad that we survived. I’m sorry about everyone that didn’t, but I’m really glad we weren’t among them. I’d have lost my mind if I lost you.”

“I would’ve shot myself.” Thomas said darkly, staring up at Stuart. “It’s not even an option. The only thing that kept me going this month was knowing I’d be back with you soon.” 

“Jesus.” Stuart muttered, cupping Thomas’ face and kissing him deeply. “Don’t fucking say that, don’t even make me think about you killing yourself. You think I’d want that for you?” He shifted between his lover’s thighs. “I’d want you to take out as many of those bastards as possible and to go down swinging, not shooting yourself, babe.”

“I’ll do both.” Thomas murmured. “Now you should get inside me.” 

“Yes, sir.” Stuart smirked, shifting once more and closing his eyes briefly as he pressed himself inside of Thomas, bottoming out in one go. His eyes rolled up, and he cursed. “So good. You always feel so fucking good, god.” He muttered, beginning to shift and twist his hips as he fucked into Thomas.

“I love you.” Thomas looked up at Stuart. “I don’t care what we do after today, as long as you’re with me.” 

Stuart breathed out softly. “God, I love you, too, Thomas.” He exhaled. “I love you so fucking much, nothing is going to keep us apart. Right? Tell me we’ll be okay.”

“We’ll be okay.” Thomas nodded. “I’m not letting them take you away from me. Whoever tries. I’ll kill them.” He smiled faintly, his eyes glinting. “I can’t lose you. I won’t. Okay?” 

Stuart grinned at him. “Okay. God, I love it when you get like this. You’re so hot.”

“I know I don’t normally, but something about you makes me almost territorial, despite how crude that might sound.” Thomas murmured. 

“Doesn’t sound crude.” Stuart breathed out. “Sounds right.” He nuzzled Thomas’ neck, pounding into him.

Thomas tilted his head back as he came. “You’ve always been good to me.” He smiled lazily. 

*****

Later that night, Dean hot-wired a van and drove everyone to the nearest Walmart, which wasn’t twenty-four hours like he thought all of them were. The parking lot was nearly deserted, and a quick glance inside the two cars already there revealed that they were being used by people just trying to get some sleep. He parked as close as he could get to the entrance without raising suspicion, then got out, laughing to himself. “All the shit I’ve done since I was five for Chimera, and this is where their fucked up training gets me. Robbing a store at one o’clock in the morning.” 

Sam grimaced. “We had a very specific skill set. Too bad it wasn’t good for anything else other than this.” He mumbled as he climbed out. “At least the stupid uniforms were good for something.”

“Covert ops on the heist of a million dollar retailer?” Erica snorted. “These don’t really make us blend in with our surroundings, sweetie.”

“Hey.” Stiles protested, stepping out of the van carefully. “My brothers got you guys clothes to change into, it’s not their fault that you decided to keep the uniform on instead.” 

Stuart patted Stiles on the shoulder. “It’s alright, little bro.” He murmured. “The uniforms do make a little more sense than whatever the behemoth bastard that wore these probably had in mind for them.”

“Well, now we can get clothes that at least look a little more decent.” Buffy turned toward Stuart. “As soon as you get their security turned off.” 

Stuart waved at her. “I’m on it, I’m on it.” He pulled the admittedly poor laptop out of the van and set it up on the hood of the van, navigating quickly into the mainframe of the store’s computer set-up. The entire camera system appeared on his screen and he grimaced when he noticed the one facing the parking lot, where they were clearly visible. He selected that camera first, rewinding the feed until the lot was completely empty save for the first two cars, then put it on a loop. The other cameras suffered the same procedure, without rewinding the film, settling onto a loop that wouldn’t show hide or hair of the group of teens. He bit his lower lip, studying the rest of the mainframe for a long moment and, praying he hadn’t forgotten anything, he slid the laptop back into the van, nodding at the rest. “Alright. We’re good to go.”

Stiles limped into the store, eyeing one of the motorized carts before he let out a war cry and got on it, riding toward the grocery section of the store. 

“Dude, wait for me!” Scott blurted out laughing. He ran after Stiles, jumping onto the back of the cart and fist-pumping. “Charge!”

Erica stared after them, one eyebrow raised in amusement. “Wow. Morons.” She breathed. Looking around, she spotted the women’s apparel section, and her eyes widened. “Mine!” She blurted, running toward the closest four-way rack.

Buffy wandered over to the rack that Erica was looking at, browsing through some of the clothes before she turned to look at a different rack, instead. 

Sam looked over at Dean and raised his eyebrows. “Hunting gear?” He suggested, waving his hand over toward the general merchandise side of the store.

“I’ll come with you.” Jackson interrupted. “We’ll get camping things, too. Just in case we have to bail unexpectedly.”

“Sounds good.” Dean agreed, walking toward that part of the store. “I don’t want this to take too much longer, though. We should be out of here in half an hour, tops.” 

Sam nodded. “We’d better hustle, then.” He said, patting Dean’s back and started walking.

Faith ran after them a moment later. “I’m coming, too!”

Stuart glanced at Thomas. “Alright. I’m going to go find a new laptop.” He grinned.

“I’ll come with you and get cell phones and walkie-talkies.” Thomas smiled back and followed Stuart to the electronics department. 

Alec looked at Lydia and Rachel. “What else do we need?”

“You probably don’t want to know.” Lydia teased. She grabbed a cart and started pushing it toward Pharmacy, tossing containers of medicine, soap, shampoo and conditioner over her shoulder. Nail polish, another pair of scissors, some razors and shaving cream, and then she went into the next aisle and started loading the cart with pads and tampons. 

Rachel wandered over from another aisle, her arms overloaded with vitamins. She let go, watching everything fall into the cart. The brunette made eye contact with the redhead. “Toothbrushes and toothpaste! I’m on it.” She darted off again. 

Alec huffed out a laugh, watching the two girls before a thought occurred to him. “I’m going to take a look around the automotive section for stuff for the van, just in case, and then I’ll come back and help you guys.” He paused. “We should probably find the cash office and break in, too. All this stuff is well and good, but we’ll be screwed if we don’t have money to back it all up and help us in the future.”

“I’ll get the money.” Lydia turned toward Rachel. “Take the cart and go find Thomas and Stuart. I’m pretty sure they were headed that way.” She pointed toward the back of the store. “But get birth control, first. And condoms. No need for these guys to claim the right to being irresponsible.” She glanced at the display of scissors in front of her, then tore one out of the package and shook her hair loose from the braid it had been in. She made a whimpering sound, but cut six inches from her hair and stuffed the handful of tresses into a nearby trash can. “Anything we can do to disguise ourselves, we need to do.” She pointed out, but her voice shook. “I wish I hadn’t done that.” 

Alec stared at her. “But it looks good.” He told her softly, nodding and giving her a small smile. “You don’t need to be upset.” 

Lydia smiled back slowly. “Okay.” She walked toward the back of the store with Alec, where she knew the office would be. “I don’t want to take too much. No more than maybe a thousand for each of us. That’s thirteen thousand, as it is. Maybe we should just stick to five hundred and go from there, I don’t know. I just know I don’t want to get caught and get the maximum sentence.” 

“Maybe a compromise for something in between?” Alec suggested, frowning. “I don’t think five hundred apiece would get us very far. Maybe seven hundred, or seven-fifty?”

Lydia thought for a moment. “Let’s just make it an even thousand for everyone. If they catch us and we all split up, they can’t say we’re together. And even if they tried, that’s thirteen of us. They can’t logically charge each of us with stealing thirteen thousand dollars. It has to be attributed appropriately.” She smiled. “I’ve had more than one mission around tax time, helping accountants. It’s not the same thing as helping a lawyer, but it’s close.” 

Alec grinned at her. “Hey, I’m stepping back and letting you take charge on this. I don’t know anything about any of this, so you’re the expert.” He reached the office door and bent down, peering at the knob and lock. A lock-picking kit appeared from his pocket, something he’d managed to steal along with him when they’d fled from Chimera, and he unraveled it, quickly locating the tools he’d need to pry the door open. Seconds later, and the door was swinging wide, Alec jumping to his feet as he held it open.

Lydia smiled gratefully and went into the room, kneeling by the safe. She was silent as she spun the dial, then put in the combination and swung the metal door open. “Thirteen thousand is what we said, isn’t it? Taking fifty would be... wrong.” 

Alec’s eyes went wide. “There’s fifty in there?” He blurted, peering inside. “Uh. I mean, technically, yeah, it’d be very wrong. Really… a lot wrong.”

“But that’s still less than four thousand dollars per person.” Lydia murmured. She thought for a long moment, her head tilted as she stared at the stacks of money. “Seven-fifty will have to do, for each of us. As a start. A thousand or more and we’re facing a more serious sentence. The last time I had to deal with this risk, it was in New York. California has a more strict set of guidelines.” She counted the money quickly, stuffing it into a bank bag and zipping the pouch shut. “We can get more from somewhere else, later. If we need to. When we need to.” 

Alec nodded, cringing as he watched the money disappear into the bag despite himself. He exhaled. “Okay. We can deal with that. Let’s get out of here, get everything else we need, and meet up with the others.”

Lydia nodded and got up, closing the door to the safe. She left the room with Alec, smiling faintly. “Let’s go to electronics. It sounds like everyone is meeting up over there, anyway. I just hope Rachel remembered to get enough birth control to last us a while. We can’t do this once a month.” 

“Does it have to be the pill kind?” Alec asked her, squinting a little. “Do they have a different kind available that would last longer for you ladies?” 

“There are shots.” Lydia mused. “Or just outright removing the organs that would get us pregnant in the first place.” She bit her lip, giving it actual thought for a long moment. “I think Thomas would faint if I asked him to perform an operation like that.” 

“Are you sure it would be because of the operation?” Alex asked, grinning faintly. “Are you sure it wouldn’t be because you were asking him to touch your parts?” He shook his head. “Let’s focus on something a little more simple. We’ll get you your shots. Those last for how long? We can just grab as many as we can, grab the pills as a back up, and then distribute them between you girls.”

“Okay.” Lydia agreed. She giggled and started running back toward the pharmacy section of the store, gathering doses of birth control and some syringes. Nobody would be due for another few months, but she was preparing for anything... except for the two police officers walking toward her and Alec. “Oh, shit!” She blurted, vaulting back over the counter. The syringes and vials of medication scattered across the floor as she dropped them, and she sprinted toward electronics, shrieking to alert the others. 

Stuart’s head shot up in alarm. “Fuck.” He cursed, and grabbed Thomas’ arm. “Go. Run, grab everything you can, and run! Get to the van!” He blurted.

“I’m not leaving you.” Thomas shook his head. 

Stiles grimaced when he realized the cart was actually slower than he would have been, running. “Scott. Go.” 

Scott snorted. “Dude, no. Not happening.” Without thinking, he bent forward and hauled Stiles over his shoulder, picking up what he could of what they’d managed to gather together. He ran for the doors.

Buffy knew it wasn’t the smartest plan, but she knocked one officer unconscious and got the other in a chokehold as he started to call for backup. “Guys! We need to go. Now. I’ve bought us maybe three minutes, this town isn’t exactly all that big.” She turned and ran for the van. 

“I’m not leaving any of this shit behind,” Jackson snapped. “We worked too hard to get it, I’m taking it with us.” He hauled as much as he could, throwing the lot of it into a cart before he started for the van. He didn’t look back to see who was following him, instead grabbing everything in the cart and throwing it into the van before throwing himself in. “Move your asses! Let’s go!”

Rachel was the last one to the van, getting there as police sped into the lot, their lights and sirens going. “I can hold them off, if you go.” She said quickly. “But you’ll have to leave me.” 

Erica grimaced. “Are you sure? What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to hold them off.” Rachel repeated. She turned toward the officers as they got out of the car, a wordless tune coming from her lungs. The men stopped and stared at her, dazed. 

“We can’t just leave her.” Lydia protested. 

“She told us to.” Stiles muttered. “Dean, drive!” 

The van lurched forward, then sped away. The officers glanced at the tail lights, but didn’t react beyond that. 

Erica ran a hand over her hair, exhaling heavily and shaking her head. She reached forward and slapped a hand down on Dean’s shoulder. “Turn around. Turn around. Don’t even slow down, we’ll just push the doors open, grab her and keep going.”

“Are you crazy?!” Dean blurted, but he groaned and spun the steering wheel, going back for Rachel. 

Rachel saw the van heading toward her and she faltered. It shouldn’t have been enough, but it was. Her hold over the officers was broken and one of them slapped cuffs over her wrists, reading her the Miranda rights as the van stopped. 

“It’s cool.” Faith grinned fiercely, launching herself out of the van. She flipped over the head of the officer arresting Rachel and boxed his ears before punching him and sending him flying into some of the others. She pushed Rachel toward the van, and then yelped when one of the cops came up behind her, sweeping her feet out from under her. She went down with a grunt. “Fuck.”

Buffy leaped out of the van next, aiming a punch at the cop that had knocked Faith to the ground. Two more police cars pulled up near the first one, and Buffy sighed, closing her eyes. If she, Faith and Rachel were left behind, they would find a way out of it, she knew. But it wasn’t going to be very easy. 

Erica shut her eyes, shaking her head. “Fuck my life.” She muttered, and then pointed at the boys and Lydia. “You’d better come back for us if this gets all cocked up to hell.” She told them, and leapt into the fray as well, tackling down the officer that was holding down Faith.

“Well, we’re fucked.” Dean muttered, twisting around to look at the melee happening behind him. “Look, we either ditch them and save ourselves, or we stick together and get busted.” 

“Who the hell even brought in the damn cops?” Stuart blurted, looking furious. He rubbed at his eyes. “Damn it. I’m not going to let the girls get arrested. Look, they can’t take on all of us, no matter how hard they try. We’ve just gotta get the girls free and split up.” He paused. “We can steal the cop cars.”

Thomas kissed Stuart and got out of the van through the side door, circling around with his hands raised halfway. “I’m not armed.” He called out. 

Rachel saw her chance and snapped the chain connecting her cuffs. 

The noise startled the officer closest to Rachel, and Buffy aimed a roundhouse kick to his midsection. She handcuffed him to the cart return near them with his own cuffs. 

Thomas got into one of the abandoned police cars and started it, waving to Dean as he sped out of the lot, lights and sirens both switched on. 

Buffy smiled triumphantly, looking around. Two of the cops were unconscious, and the other three looked more than a little terrified. “Okay, hand over your keys.” She commanded. “If you fight, you’re going to lose. I think you see that now, don’t you?” 

One of the conscious officers grimaced and tossed his keys to Buffy, bending his head down and folding his hands behind his head. “You aren’t going to get away with this. We will find you.”

“‘We will make you pay for this, you won’t get away with this, you and your little dog, too,’ blah blah blah,” Erica mocked, opening and closing her hand beside her head. “Shut up and give us the other keys, you asses.”

Lydia got out and dragged one of the unconscious officers to a different cart return, imitating Buffy’s solution and handcuffing him to it.

Buffy threw the second set of car keys to Alec, moving behind the cop that had handed them over and handcuffing his hands behind his back. She pulled him up into a standing position. “I’m trying to figure out where to put you.” She said earnestly. “We’re actually not the bad guys. Do you have a preference? I could take you to electronics and find you a nice movie?” 

Faith laughed at Buffy, then groaned, touching her face. “Ow. Douchebag. Did you have to take me down so hard?” She snapped, kicking at the officer.

“Faith, no.” Erica chided, shaking her head. “Come on, you’re gonna heal, dumbass. Get in the cop car and let’s abandon these suckers.”

Alec waited for Faith and Erica to get in before he drove out of the lot. 

Lydia unlocked the cuffs from Rachel’s wrists, letting them fall to the ground. She turned toward the guys in the van. “Just go.” She snapped. “We’ll take the third car and meet you later. Thanks for all the help, by the way!” 

Buffy had locked the conscious officer to a metal bench in front of the store. She ran back to Rachel and Lydia. “Well, that’s three down and three to go.” She eyed the two conscious officers warily, then stepped forward. “Sorry about this, guys.” She murmured, knocking their heads together and lowering them to the ground once they were unconscious. “I think we should put them in the spots of the store that we obviously stole from. Make it interesting.” 

“Leave it for them.” Lydia gestured to the guys in the van. She yanked a set of keys from one of the officers’ pockets, starting the last police car. 

Stuart grimaced, glancing at the other boys. “Well. We’re in trouble.” He shook his head.

Scott sighed. “We’re going to have a lot of work to do, making this up to them. We should probably start now.”

“Count me out.” Dean muttered. “I don’t owe them shit.” He got out of the van and picked up one of the cops, carrying him into the store and laying him down on one of the conveyors at a checkout lane. He used the officer’s cuffs to secure his ankle to the light post. 

*****

An hour later, the police cars had been abandoned at various locations around town, and the van was parked at the high school. The thirteen Alphas met up at the loft, their money and supplies divided up as evenly as they could be. 

Buffy sat cross-legged on the floor, staring out at the city lights through the massive window in front of her. “Is now when we’re going to separate?” She asked, not looking at the others. 

“It’d be safer for us.” Jackson muttered, leaning back against one of the columns. He stared at Buffy for a moment. “Let’s be real - thirteen teenagers running around altogether would be much easier to bust than thirteen teenagers running around in groups all over the damn place.”

“The problem with that is that I honestly think we’re better together.” Stuart sighed.

“So do I.” Thomas murmured. 

“Oh, of course you do.” Lydia retorted. “It’s pretty much against your DNA to argue with one another, isn’t it?” She took a deep breath. “Jackson is right, we need to be in smaller groups. Trying to keep track of one another is all well and good, when it’s something actually being done, not just a bunch of goldfish gaping at the ones who are doing all of the work!” 

“We’ve apologized, Lydia,” Stuart muttered. “You’re the one with the debilitating fucking banshee scream, I don’t know why you didn’t just yell your way out of the scenario and get us out of there that much faster. And anyway…” He trailed off and mumbled the rest, his cheeks red.

“And anyway what?” Lydia snapped. 

“It was fucking hot watching five chicks kicking ass!” Stuart snapped back, scowling. “I don’t know about the rest of these guys, but my brain sort of blanked out.”

Dean nodded, smiling sheepishly. “That’s basically what happened, yeah.” 

Buffy put her hands down on the floor and used them to turn around, facing everyone else. “Seriously? You couldn’t help us because you were too fixated on your erections?” 

“It wasn’t... quite like that.” Stiles cleared his throat. “I’m pretty sure I can speak for all of us when I say that nobody was thinking about dicks.” 

Erica stared at them for a long moment, then rolled her eyes skyward. “Christ. It’s a good thing you guys are so pretty, because otherwise, you’re kinda useless.” She snorted, shaking her head.

Faith’s lips twitched. “I don’t know what you gals are so pissed off about. That’s a compliment to me. A bunch of boys stunned stupid because I can kick ass and look hot as fuck doing it? I’ll take it.”

“The rest of us actually want to be appreciated for other reasons.” Lydia scoffed. “I don’t need a guy to validate me, anyway.” 

“Yeah, okay, everybody knows you have the biggest brain here, Lydia.” Erica rolled her eyes, pursing her lips together. She glanced at Faith, and then shrugged. “Maybe Faith is right about this. I know I’ve got some amazing assets, and maybe ass-kicking isn’t my primary specialty, but I can handle myself pretty well. I’ll take the ineptitude as a compliment.”

“I’ve never had someone tell me I’m hot before.” Rachel said quietly. “Never mind eight someones at once.” 

Lydia rolled her eyes and went into the kitchen, opening a bottle of water for herself. 

Erica’s eyes softened, and she sat down beside Rachel, putting a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “You’re plenty hot. And you can ignore anyone who might say you’re not.”

Stuart watched them, looking down with a sigh. He leaned against Thomas, grumbling quietly to himself. “We’re self-absorbed assholes.”

“No, we’re not.” Thomas put his arm around Stuart’s waist. “We’re just not mind-readers. I am a little curious, though. To see who ends up together, the longer we stay as a group. Which we should be doing. All of us. I’m not just agreeing with you because I like your dick, either.” He smiled. “It’s better for us this way. We could be a good team if we gave it a try. What happened earlier tonight, that’s because we were in smaller groups.” 

Stuart grinned faintly. “You're so fucking smart.” He murmured, tilting his head to kiss Thomas’ temple. He pulled back and tilted his head up, staring at the ceiling thoughtfully. “We could start our own company.” He murmured. “Not like Chimera, I mean, or not entirely like them. We could be problem solvers of a sort. We already do that anyway, but we'd actually be running the show and making the money instead of getting handed allowances.”

Faith had been listening to them silently, her head tilted. “Well, I'm for it.” She said, squinting at them, and then looked around. “Seriously, do any of you actually think that we could integrate into society and live normal freaking lives at a nine-to-five without pulling our hair out and blowing something to kingdom come? I know myself, okay? I'll get bored not getting to use weapons within twenty minutes, and then I'll get stabby.”

“No Omegas though, right?” Buffy asked, her voice rough with irritation. “So many who looked like me were taken. I’m the only one that made Alpha, but I kept track. And I’ve seen what happens to the Alphas that break. I don’t know who’s got it worse, us or them. I have an idea.” She looked around the room, at the other survivors. “It might suck.”

“What are you thinking?” Thomas asked softly, sitting down and tugging Stuart down beside him. 

“We know we can take out anyone in our way.” Buffy murmured. “Backup’s good, though. I know you hate the idea of smaller groups... maybe what we need is someone running surveillance?” She sighed in frustration with herself. “We turn ourselves in. Three at least, no more than five.” She glanced up at Faith. “Hot girls with super powers, right? We could work out a deal with the local cops. No arrests on our records. We don’t have records, anyway. Chimera saw to that. We don’t even have last names. We’re nonexistent to this world. We start by hunting down Deucalion, Brunski and Harris. Let them get arrested for... something.”

“Human trafficking.” Stiles nodded, glancing at his identical brothers. “Two hundred and fifty counts of it. We’ll need proof, though. That means going back and getting whatever we can find. They wouldn’t have expunged everything, the released Omegas probably still have trackers.”

“There are other facilities.” Thomas reached for Stuart’s hand. “Seattle and Los Angeles. Deucalion and Harris mentioned names. Kali and Ennis. If the genetic markers in us are the same as the others there, we could infiltrate those buildings and take them down.”

“We need to wait. Not long, just long enough. We’ll start with the local cops plan. I like it. It gives us clearance and authority here.” Stiles nodded. “We can build from that, but we need a new name for this group of ours. Some kind of counterbalance to Chimera.”

“Pegasus.” Lydia sat down by Stiles. “Bellerophon was on Pegasus’ back when he fired the arrows that killed the chimera. Greek mythology.”

Stiles nodded to the redhead. “I like that.” He laid back, wriggling around a little to try to get comfortable. “What we need is to inventory everything we took. Take the list with you when you go see the cops. Don’t talk to them, talk to the Sheriff. He’s the one that makes the call about how things get handled, anyway.” After another moment of trying and failing to find a comfortable position that wouldn’t aggravate his injured shoulder, he sat up again, taking a deep breath to try to get past the pain. “I only made Alpha by like, a second.” He admitted quietly. “I’m pretty much just normal, compared to the rest of you superhero types.” He exhaled again, trying to focus on what he had been saying. “We’ll negotiate a deal, but no repayment for what we took from Walmart. They’re a multi-billion dollar corporation, they can handle a hit like what we gave them. We’ll formally apologize to the cops and cite duress for that. We needed to get what we got, nothing was excessive. Not for us and what we can do. The list of stuff is just... to show that we’re organized.” He yawned, whimpering when his muscles twinged. “We’ll offer community service as an option, if it’s pressed that we were in the wrong. No jail time. We grew up in a freaking prison. And if they ignore that, then... show them that cell doors can’t stop us. Break it. Fuck them if they don’t like it, right? I’m so tired. Anyway, we’ll go... no, you’ll go.” He waved a hand toward the girls. “I’ll sleep. Better to move now. Don’t let them find us first.” 

Scott ran a hand gently over the top of Stiles’ head. “Go to sleep, you.” He murmured. “We'll discuss it again later, when you're up to it. For now, we’ll keep making plans, and not dive headlong into anything that might get our asses lit on fire.”

Stiles looked hesitant as he stared at Scott, laying his head down in his best friend’s lap. “No plans without me. I can't keep you safe if I don’t make the plans.”

“We’ll manage.” Buffy said gently. “We’re just talking. I can’t say I know what you two dealt with before all of this, but you’re not alone now.” 

“You hear that, Stiles?” Scott said gently, his voice soft and warm, and he scratched his fingers gently against Stiles’ scalp. “We’re not alone. That sure is something, huh?”

“Yeah.” Stiles closed his eyes. “So good.” He murmured, sighing as he fell asleep.

Thomas watched Stiles and Scott with a small smile. “If we send you girls into the station, we should send a guy, too. I’m not saying you need one of us, just that there are different ways to appeal to a misogynist, and you’re bound to encounter one. This Sheriff might be one. So we’ll send Dean.” He nodded to the Alpha in question. “I have a feeling he can handle it better than the rest of us.”

“You callin’ me a misogynist?” Dean asked, staring back at Thomas. 

“I’m saying that in a crowded elevator, full of nuns, you'd be complimenting one of them on their breasts.” Thomas said bluntly. “I’ve seen you do exactly that.”

“Those weren't real nuns.” Dean protested. “The one I was saying that to was a dude. I was trying to piss him off, and it worked.”

“Yes, and you can do that again. To the Sheriff.” Thomas nodded. “Get him saying the wrong thing if he’s rattled, we’ll record it and use it against him if we have to. But you're exactly the type that looks like-”

“An asshole.” Buffy laughed. 

Dean smirked at them. “You spend a lot of time looking at me?”

“I do!” Faith piped up, mirroring Erica, who grinned widely and nodded. 

“Anyway,” Stuart interrupted, sighing. “Thomas is right. You look like a dickhead, Dean, you can relate to other dickheads. If the Sheriff is one, that is.”

Sam groaned softly. “Kinda wish you guys would stop calling my brother names.” He muttered, shaking his head.

“We’re all related.” Lydia murmured. “Technically. X-elevens have canine DNA. Canis lupus. We just have it spliced differently. Rachel’s howl is more hypnotic, mine is a warning cry. Scott runs the fastest, Dean is more territorial. Well... we’re all territorial. Wolves in a pack are classified as alphas, betas and omegas. We’re not supposed to get along with each other, we’re not meant to.”

“How do you know all of this?” Buffy frowned. 

“Observation. Study.” Lydia explained. “Test it if you need to. Get hungry enough and order a rare steak at a restaurant. See how you feel after you eat it.”

“Have you done that?” Thomas looked intrigued. 

Lydia nodded. “Those monthly exams of ours, by the way? They were to dose us with suppressants. It’s April eleventh. The full moon is in a week. We’re not medicated, and we won’t be.”

“There’s an animal clinic downtown.” Thomas said quietly, his thoughts racing. “They should have tranquilizers.”

“Christ.” Scott murmured, swallowing. “So we’re going to have to - what, suppress ourselves just to make sure we don’t go buckwild and take out the populace?” He exhaled, rubbing his mouth.

Faith leaned back thoughtfully. “It does explain a couple of things. Sammy’s so damn loyal, it does make him seem pretty puppy-ish.” 

Sam raised an eyebrow, squinting at her. “Me? Seriously?”

Buffy smiled. “Yeah, you and Scott. You both seem... like you would play fetch if someone was willing to throw a ball for you. But in a cute way.” 

Scott hesitated. “Well… For humility’s sake, let’s make sure I don’t get anywhere near any sports games, okay?”

Sam started laughing. “Same. Please.”

Buffy grinned. “I think we’ll be too busy for either of you to have to worry about that.” 

Alec watched the rest with amusement, then sighed. “Okay, that’s all well and good, but we should probably start talking about those plans now, huh? What the hell are we going to actually do? Like Scott said, I don’t want to be passing through town and catch a whiff of some unsuspecting bastard before I try and tear their throat open or something.”

“If we leave now, we can get the tranquilizers and maybe find some kind of hormone suppressant at that clinic.” Thomas stood up. “The sun won’t be up for a few more hours, and I think we’re better off keeping our travel to night as much as possible.” 

“You’re not wrong.” Erica muttered, rubbing the side of her head. She sighed and stood up. “I don’t think all of us should go for this one. Maybe… Okay, I volunteer. And I think Lydia should go, because she said she’s read up on this shit, so she’ll know what the hell we’re looking for exactly. And maybe one of the puppies should go, since I doubt anyone would want those eyes turned on them for any reason.”

“Sam. I think Stiles would set us on fire if he woke up and Scott was gone.” Buffy teased. “But the rest of us should handle the Sheriff now. Or at least, some of us. If we keep them busy enough, they won’t have time to come check out the vet’s office.” 

“Sounds good to me.” Stuart murmured, nodding at Buffy. He rolled to his feet and moved behind Thomas, wrapping an arm around his waist.

Faith stood. “I guess that means that Buffy and I are on Sheriff-duty with Dean, then?” She grinned at the blonde.

Buffy nodded at Faith. “This could be interesting.” She smiled. 

Thomas kissed Stuart. “We won’t be long.” 

Stuart grinned, kissing Thomas back. “I know it. Alright, go. We’ll hold down the fort.” He paused and looked around. “Such as it is.”

Rachel waved goodbye to the teens that were leaving, then yawned and laid down, pulling a blanket over her. “I think we’ll be fine, no matter what happens.” She smiled wistfully. 

Stuart smiled at her, and then moved toward Scott and Stiles, running a hand affectionately over the top of Scott’s head. “I think you’re right. Get some rest, Rachel. We’re not going anywhere.”

Rachel nodded and closed her eyes. 

*****

Buffy walked into the police station, looking around the room for other doorways or anything else she and the other Alphas could use to make an escape if things went wrong. 

Faith followed her in, looking around as well, although it was more out of curiosity for her as she had never freely walked into a police station before. “Huh. You know, this place has got a whole different feel to it when you don’t have to figure out a way to make yourself disappear between getting cuffed and getting interrogated.” She murmured. Pausing, she added, “It’s kinda boring.”

Dean laughed. “Yeah, but half of the people in a place like this are just looking for a way to have authority over somebody, you know? Closet doms. Or whatever.” He shrugged. 

Buffy snorted and shook her head, ringing the bell on the front counter. “Excuse me? Can we get some help here, please?” 

The officer standing behind the counter looked up and stared at Buffy for a long moment before making a show of deliberately setting down her paperwork and walking toward the window. “How can I help you?” She asked, frowning at her.

“You could let us talk to the Sheriff?” Buffy smiled. “We won’t talk to anyone except your Sheriff.” 

“Speak for yourself.” Dean murmured, eyeing the officer. He bit his lip and grinned at the woman. 

The officer faltered once she realized Dean was looking at her, and she let out a nervous laugh, almost dropping a pen. “Well, I mean… I’d like to, but he’s very busy, you understand? He’s got so much on his plate.”

“What about you? Are you busy?” Dean took a step closer to her. “We’re new around here and... my sisters and I just wanted to talk about some robberies in the neighborhood we moved into, that’s all.” 

Faith watched in amusement as the officer stuttered at Dean’s advances, glancing at Buffy with a grin. “It’s like watching a freaking soap opera or something.” She muttered quietly, nearly cheering when the officer suddenly nodded at Dean, her eyes fixated on him.

Buffy nudged Faith and walked around the front counter, looking for the Sheriff’s office. 

Faith blinked, and then followed Buffy, her eyes flicking up and down the hallway before she put a hand on her sister’s back and nodded toward the end of the hall, where the latter half of the word ‘SHERIFF’ could be seen in black on the door.

Buffy gave Faith a grateful smile, then opened the door to the office, peering inside. She could hear Dean still flirting with the officer at the front of the building, and she tried not to roll her eyes. 

Faith snickered quietly, slipping into the office and standing in the doorway with her arms folded. Her eyes lit up a little. “Oh.” She muttered, and glanced at Buffy, pointing at the Sheriff. “He’s pretty.”

John squinted, and then looked up from his paperwork in confusion. “Can I help you ladies?” He asked, raising an eyebrow.

Faith beamed winningly at him, starting to take a step forward. “You bet you can,” she blurted.

Buffy sighed and did roll her eyes this time. “We’re here to talk about the Walmart break-in.” She said bluntly. “But we’re only going to talk to you because it’s a lot more complicated than just... teenagers being lame.” 

“Oh?” John looked concerned, sitting up in his chair and ignoring Faith for the moment. “Well… have a seat. I thought it was odd that my deputies didn’t manage to capture a single person.” He set his hands on his desk, studying Buffy. “What do you know?”

“I know that I’m one of the people that did it.” Buffy sat down. “She’s another one.” She pointed at Faith. “There are thirteen of us. And we took the things we did because we need them. We’re not willing to serve jail or prison time, and you would be wasting your time if you tried to make us. We’re here because... we need help. From actual authority.” 

John studied her thoughtfully. “So… you admit to theft, but you’d like to make a deal, basically. Rather than serve time… what do you have in mind? Why would thirteen of you break into a Walmart for simple necessities.” He studied her, squinting. Lifting his head a little, he straightened and exhaled. “Who’s after you?”

Buffy smiled softly. “A lot of people.” She admitted. “There’s a reason why we wanted to talk to you, and not one of your deputies.” She fell silent, wanting to choose her words carefully. “At the other end of town, out in the Preserve, there’s a really big fence that surrounds some buildings. That’s where we’re from. We’re not the only ones, but our... home. Our house, not really a home, actually. It was destroyed. We were born in one of those buildings and there were two hundred and fifty of us, but a couple of days ago, the people in charge...” She took a deep breath, feeling like she had said enough already. 

John’s eyes hardened. “The people of this town have held a lot of suspicion about that place.” He said quietly. “No one here really understood why, it was just a… sense. That something about that place was just wrong. You said there were two hundred and fifty of you?” He paused, studying Buffy’s face, before glancing at Faith, comprehension dawning. “And now there are only thirteen.” He pursed his lips together tightly. “Who am I looking for?”

“Harris and this guy that we only know as Deucalion. And Brunski. I don’t know his first name, either.” Buffy muttered. “But you’re going to have a hard time finding them, they’re good at hiding.” She paused, glancing at Faith. “How unfair is it that we only know their last names and they never bothered giving us any?” 

Faith rolled her eyes. “About as unfair as anything else we’ve ever dealt with when it comes to them. They had the power. Now they don’t. At least not over us, anymore.” She turned to study the Sheriff, appreciating the fact that he hadn’t just outright thrown them out of the building, and was actually listening to Buffy. “Do you actually think you could find them?” She asked him, frowning a little.

John smiled faintly. “If they’re as good at hiding as you say they are, they might give us some trouble. But I’ve got their last names, now. And with descriptions from you, we can run them through the national database and see if anyone close pops up.”

Buffy looked relieved. “Okay. Um, I’m supposed to also say... we stole from that particular store because they’re a wealthy corporation and they could handle the loss. Just... I’m trying to make sure I don’t screw this up, the guy that kind of...” She bit her lip. “Nevermind.” 

John tilted his head at her. “It’s alright, sweetheart.” He told her quietly. “Tell me. Just… take your time. What guy? Why would you screw this up? You told me there were thirteen of you that did this, and just from talking to you… You don’t seem the type to lie about anything you’ve said. Thirteen of you. Thirteen teenagers, survived out of two hundred and fifty, after three men who only ever gave you their last names suddenly destroyed the facilities you grew up in. It’s not hard to make a connection to what happened there. So… no, I’m not going to hold you accountable for what you’ve done. You’re trying to survive on your own. Walmart is a big enough store. They can handle themselves just fine without our assistance.” He paused, then shrugged, grinning faintly. “In any case, that particular store isn’t in my jurisdiction.”

Buffy laughed. “The first of us were born in nineteen ninety-three. The company... I’m not sure who funds them, but it has to be someone with a lot of money. Project Chimera is what the division or facility or whatever... that’s what they called it. And there are locations in, um, Seattle and Los Angeles. Probably other places too, but those are the only ones we’ve heard of. The names Kali and Ennis were mentioned, too. They created or birthed fifty of us a year. When we each turned five, they tested us to see if we were good enough to be Alphas. The strongest and fastest. The smartest. If we passed both of their tests, we were Alphas. Some of us became Betas and got a sort of regular education, but never even left the fence. And then the Omegas... they’re like living dolls or robots. They erase their memories and make them different, for different things. Someone else, we don’t know who, blew up the Omega building. When some of the guys, the ones that survived, went to pretend to fix it, they were really just trying to learn what they could about the Omega program. We had never been allowed near that building. When people we knew were sent away to become Omegas, we never saw them again. The guys got caught, and to protect themselves, the guards killed the Omegas. They tried to kill our friends. We’re the only ones that made it out alive. We have no money, no record of our existence that we’re even aware of, except for what’s probably still there. Unless they destroyed everything after we left. We haven’t gone back.” She bit her lip, thinking. “Can I borrow your letter opener?” 

John found himself reeling from Buffy’s explanation, blinking rapidly. He frowned briefly at her request, then shook his head to clear it. “Uh. Yeah, sure.” He reached for the letter opener and handed it to her carefully.

“Okay.” Buffy paused. “Don’t freak out.” She told him, tilting her head down and drawing the blade across the back of her neck. She reached in carefully, pulling her tracker out and wiping the blood off on her jeans. The wound she had inflicted sealed itself shut, and she held the homing device up to show John. “My guess? They haven’t come looking for us because they’re busy trying to fix things for themselves.” She handed the letter opener to Faith. “Your turn.” 

Faith sighed, taking the letter opener and doing the same. “Can I have a napkin or a tissue or something?” She asked John, her voice tinged with a whine. “These are the only good pair of jeans I’ve got right now, I never did manage to grab a new pair the other night.”

John stared at them both, taking the tracker from Buffy to study it before he grabbed several tissues and handed them to Faith. “Jesus christ.” He muttered quietly. “If this is government sanctioned bullcrap, I’ll have lost all faith in this country.”

“Like I said, I’m not sure who funds it. It would be a little bit like justice if it was Walmart, right?” Buffy snorted. “We want to work with you and stop them. We don’t hate ourselves or anything, but we think people deserve better than... being raised in a lab and being used to assassinate people or... oh! Human trafficking. Stiles says if we can get the proof for you, you can charge those guys with two hundred and fifty counts of it.” 

“You’re goddamn right I can.” John said roughly, his brow furrowed and his eyes dark. “If they’ve still got records of these kids somewhere, I can charge them with at least two hundred and twenty-five counts of murder, too.”

Dean leaned in the doorway, smiling sheepishly. “Hey, uh, sorry for... who’m I kidding? I’m not sorry.” He laughed and sat down by Faith, nodding to the Sheriff. 

“Forgive him, he’s an idiot.” Buffy remarked. 

Faith flicked Buffy’s arm. “He’s not an idiot, he’s just…” She trailed off and looked at Dean, and then smirked. “Well, yeah, he kinda is.” She handed him the letter opener that she still had in her grasp, as well as the tissues she hadn’t used. 

Dean gave Faith a questioning look. 

“For your tracker.” Buffy explained. 

“Oh, yeah.” Dean cut the back of his neck and removed his tracker. He looked up at John. “Are we sure we can trust this guy?” He asked, not taking his eyes off of the Sheriff. 

“If you had been back here instead of flirting with the deputy, you would have the answer to that.” Buffy rolled her eyes. She smiled faintly at John. “Having twelve siblings is really nothing like the Waltons made it sound. Or the Duggars.” 

“Whatever, is he helping us, then?” Dean interrupted. 

“Yes.” Buffy turned to frown at Dean. 

‘Daddy issues, much?’ Dean mouthed. 

Buffy glared. 

John sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Are you done?” He asked them, glancing at Dean. He frowned a second later. “Which deputy were you flirting with?”

“I don’t know her name.” Dean admitted. “Brown hair, great ti- uh, tickets.” 

Buffy put her hand over her eyes, sighing and shaking her head. 

John pointed at Dean. “You leave her alone, you hear me? She’s got a husband and a kid.”

“Hey, it was harmless flirting.” Dean protested. 

“As long as that ‘harmless flirting’ is all it was, kid.” John told him firmly.

Faith rolled her head back, laughing. “Ah, this is fantastic. It’s like having a real dad and watching him get big brother in trouble.” She told Buffy, grinning.

Buffy smiled back at Faith and nodded. 

“Like I said, daddy issues.” Dean remarked, smirking at Faith and Buffy. 

“If I hit him, will I be charged with committing a crime, or would you give me an award?” Buffy asked John. 

John snorted, eyeing Dean speculatively. “You can always try to find out, but I don’t know how much good I’ll be a helping you out with that award.”

“We’re not gonna spar in here.” Dean protested when Buffy looked like she was about to get out of her chair. “Everything will end up broken.” 

Buffy pouted, then shrugged. “Okay. We should probably get going, anyway.” She handed John a list of cell phone numbers for herself, Faith and Dean. “We’ll come back later on, probably with someone else. He would have come with us this time, but he’s been resting. Trying to heal. He was hit by a couple of bullets. But he’s okay.” 

John stood and took the sheet from her, studying it thoughtfully. “Well, I’m glad your friend is okay.” He told her, looking up at her briefly. “Getting hit by bullets anywhere is never fun. I’ll have the door open for you. Just let anyone know when you get here, that you’re here to see Sheriff John Stilinski, alright? What are your names again?”

“Um.” Buffy made a face. “I’m Buffy, that’s Faith and that’s Dean.” She pointed to each of her siblings in turn. “I started off as a Beta, and another Alpha named me. That’s... a detail you probably didn’t need. We’re weird.” She muttered, standing up. “Thanks for listening, though.” 

“It’s not a problem.” John said quietly. “I’ve got a lot of new information that I need to think through until you come back. Thank you for coming in and speaking with me.”

“No problem, Sheriff.” Faith replied, and put a hand on Buffy’s elbow, tugging the other girl out of the office with her as she waved at the Sheriff.


	2. Chapter 2

Stiles woke up the next morning, looking around as he sat up. The wounds to his leg and shoulder didn’t hurt anymore, and he could see a small collection of medicine from the vet’s office on the counter. “So you guys just decided not to wait for me on this?” He asked, frowning. “Did you go see the Sheriff, too?”

Buffy gave Stiles a guilty smile and nodded. “We just wanted to get everything taken care of.”

“Who did what, then?” Stiles asked quietly, seething and trying to control it. 

“I went to the police station with Faith and Dean, and Lydia went to the vet’s with Erica, Thomas and Sam.” Buffy murmured hesitantly. “But we did really well. We promised John - the Sheriff - that we would be back with you, soon. And he wants to help. I told him every-” She faltered when Stiles moved toward her, a scowl on his face. “Everything you said to say.”

“Did you tell him,” Stiles asked, his voice low as he leaned down slightly to make eye contact with her, “how every single one of you decided to ignore the fact that I told you to wait? That outside of Chimera’s walls, your training counts for nothing?!” He snapped, snarling at her. 

Buffy’s worried expression gave way to one of anger. She stood up straight. “Listen, little brother. My training didn’t go away overnight, and I’ll show you exactly what my skill set is if you don’t take three steps back and get out of my face. What we were doing was letting you heal from injuries you got while you were trying to help save us. And we’re grateful for that. But if you think that entitles you to rule us, you're wrong.”

Stiles took a few steps back. He closed his eyes and sighed. “Right.” He murmured. “Sorry. I don’t... I can have a temper sometimes, but never this bad.”

“It’s not your fault.” Lydia put her hand on Stiles’ shoulder. “You’re used to moving around more than you have in the last few days. We should probably all start running laps around the building. We’re too pent up and it’s only going to cause problems later. We have tranquilizers now, and some hormone suppressants. It took me awhile to make sure they would work on us. I already took the suppressant. I think you need it, too.” 

Stiles nodded, feeling a little embarrassed. “Okay. Dose me.” He murmured. He wouldn't say it out loud after the night they had before, with Lydia being almost disgusted with the male Alphas for admitting their attraction, but her hand on his shoulder made him want to turn her around and rut against her. “How long does it take to start working?”

Lydia gave him a concerned smile. “About an hour or two, even with our metabolic rate. Why?”

“Dose me and back off for two hours.” Stiles remarked. 

Alec’s head popped up at Stiles’ words, and he narrowed his eyes at the younger man, his lips curling up in warning. He stepped forward, looking at Lydia. “Can I help you?”

Scott stared at them both warily, circling a hand around Stiles’ wrist and pulling the other boy toward him protectively. “No offense, dude, but I think you might be needing your own dose, too. I don’t think I want you near Stiles right now, especially not when Lydia is stuck in between you two.”

Buffy looked at Alec. “Go out to the balcony.” She told him. “We’ll get to you in a minute.” 

“I could get to him right now.” Stiles corrected, nodding to Alec. “I’m not in any pain, now. I’m all healed up.” 

Scott frowned disapprovingly at Stiles. “Sit. Let Lydia dose you, and try and relax. When you feel up to it, we’ll go over where to go from here with the Sheriff and Chimera.” He ran his thumb soothingly over the back of Stiles’ neck, stroking the skin.

Stiles relaxed under Scott’s touch, sighing as he closed his eyes. “Okay.” 

Lydia prepared a syringe and injected the medication into Stiles’ lower back, smacking his shoulder when he growled as the needle pierced his skin. “You know how injections work, don’t give me attitude about it.” 

Scott’s lips twitched, and he tugged playfully on Stiles’ hair. “She’s right, you big baby. You’re okay. You know you are. I’m here with you.”

Stiles glanced up at Scott, smiling. “I’ve never liked needles, though.” He muttered. “I’m hungry and I think Lydia’s right, I should go for a run.” 

“Maybe,” Scott nodded. “But maybe we should contain the running to the lower half of the building for now? I know that kind of sucks, but…” He sucked in a shaky, nervous breath. “We don’t really know if anyone’s watching us or not. Keeping out of sight and making sure that someone we don’t know and could possibly have a connection with Chimera just… seems a good idea right now, you know? I don’t know, maybe I’m just being paranoid.”

“You’re not paranoid if people really are out to get you.” Stiles murmured, his gaze going to Scott’s mouth. He cleared his throat and looked away, then got up from the chair. “I’m gonna go run downstairs then, yeah? Dose Alec before he starts humping the walls.” He laughed and ran out of the apartment, toward the stairs. 

“Bastard.” Alec muttered, his ears perked and his eyes glaring after Stiles.

Scott sighed, glancing at Lydia. “I can take care of this one, I think.” He told her, reaching for a new needle and vial. He glanced at her warily. “How much longer do you think it’ll be before everyone else starts, um. Getting affected? Because I’m not… I mean, maybe it’s because I’m newer, I never tested for Alpha and I never thought I could before, but… I don’t feel anything.”

Lydia gave Scott a curious look. “Have you ever experienced sexual attraction?” 

Scott blushed. “Well… Yeah, but… I just mean, I don’t feel out of control with it like…” He gestured awkwardly toward Alec.

“It’s possible that it’s just affecting you differently.” Lydia mused. “There could even be a medical precedent for it. Your asthma and the way you control your breathing, maybe. Thomas is more medically-trained than me, you should ask him. But I’m going to give you a dose anyway, just to be sure that we don’t do it too late.” She turned toward Alec and crooked a finger at him, figuring her playful smile would be enough to draw him closer, considering the state he was in. 

Alec let out a low growl, stalking slowly closer to Lydia. He dragged his nose up the line of her neck, scenting her hungrily, and his hands clasped her hips, tugging her against him mindlessly.

Lydia turned her head, relieved that she had taken the suppressant hours earlier. “Now, Scott.” She murmured. “Before this gets really uncomfortable.” 

Scott let out a tiny ‘eep’ and stepped closer, nodding. He waited until Alec’s attention was solely on scenting and tasting Lydia’s neck. “Lift his shirt.” He told her, suctioning the suppressant out of the vial and into the needle before tapping the needle to rid it of air.

Lydia pulled Alec’s shirt up in the back. “Can someone please make sure he doesn’t bite me when the needle goes in? He’s completely feral right now.” 

Scott nodded. “I’ve got it covered.” He extended a hand, pressing gentle fingers to Alec’s neck and winding them around the other teen’s throat, holding him there. His index finger and thumb pressed against the edges of Alec’s jaw, and as he moved the needle to the other boy’s spine and depressed the needle, he pulled back on Alec, tugging his face away from Lydia’s neck.

Alec snarled and tried to pull away from both Scott and Lydia, fighting against Scott’s hold on his neck.

Scott held firm, tightening his grip. “Nope. Knock it off, dude, it’s not happening.”

Alec let out a low whine, growling a little more helplessly before he sank back in Scott’s grip, panting a little. He hung his head low, groaning.

Lydia sighed. “Are you okay?” She asked Alec, straightening her clothes. 

Alec avoided his eyes from hers, looking mortified. “Yeah, I’m… good.” He muttered, nodding. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Lydia murmured. “You wouldn’t have gotten very far, someone would have stopped you. I know that doesn’t sound very comforting, but it is. For me, at least.” She smiled faintly. “You should probably consider running a few laps up and down the stairs, like Stiles is doing.” 

Alec grimaced. “Yeah, I think you’re right.” He mumbled, sighing. He turned to leave the room.

Scott watched him go, and then smiled at Lydia. “Well. If you want to go ahead and give me my shot, I’m ready.”

Lydia smiled back and prepared the syringe, injecting the medication into Scott’s lower back. “I think maybe you’re not affected because you have a sort of... dampener.” She said quietly. 

“What do you mean?” Scott asked curiously, wincing a little from the pinch of the needle. “A dampener, I mean? What would it be?”

“Something that keeps you tethered, I guess. A reason you’re not affected. I would have said the asthma, but I don’t think that’s it. You and Stiles seem to keep each other pretty calm.” 

Scott furrowed his brow. “So… you think Stiles is the reason I haven’t been going nuts?”

“Maybe.” Lydia murmured. “It could be that you’re just not affected and there’s no real explanation for it. But if I had to guess, I’d say that these last few days have suggested otherwise. At the very least, you keep him calm. I don’t see why that can’t work the other way. He gets agitated, you touch him and he relaxes.” 

Scott smiled a little. “I’ve always had that effect on him. I used to think, sometimes, that was part of the reason why he failed the tests when we were five. You know? Like… he worried that if he became an Alpha, he wouldn’t be able to be there for me, but I also wouldn’t be able to be there with him to keep him calm.” He shrugged. “I know we all call each other brothers and sisters, but we were never really treated that way, you know? We were treated like soldiers. If I had anyone that was as close to a real brother for me, it’s Stiles.”

Lydia smiled back, but she wasn’t so sure that Scott’s assessment of his relationship with Stiles was accurate. “Are you hungry?” 

Scott’s eyes lit up, and he nodded. “God, yeah, I’m starving.” He blurted.

“I know it’s a risk, but we could go to a diner? I saw one near here, last night.” Lydia suggested. “Maybe we should all go?” 

Scott hesitated, but nodded slowly. “Maybe in three groups of three and one group of four? And we can get seats nearby, but not next to each other?” 

Lydia started to nod, then laughed. “I think they’ll realize something is up when they see Dean and Alec, and then Stiles, Stuart and Thomas.” 

Scott flushed. “Oh, right.” He grinned sheepishly. “Well, we’ll just make sure that they’re in groups together, and maybe everyone around us will just think it’s kind of amazing that there are twins and triplets in the same place as them.”

“They’ll probably stare.” Lydia mused. “But okay.” She nodded.

Scott smiled. “Does anyone else need a shot right now, do you think?” He asked, peering out at everyone in the other room.

“I’m pretty sure you were the last one.” Lydia smiled. She walked over to clothes she had folded and stacked on top of a coffee table she had brought up from a different apartment, then started changing into a skirt and blouse, not concerned about modesty until she remembered that she didn’t have to live by Chimera’s standards anymore. Her cheeks were a little pink as she looked around, wondering if she had done the wrong thing. 

“Hey, what are you getting dressed for?” Faith called, squinting at Lydia. “Is something happening?”

“Lunch.” Lydia smiled. “I think we should all go to the diner. It’s a couple of blocks from here and I don’t want to hide forever.” 

At once, Faith, Erica and Jackson jumped up from their seats. “God, yes.” Faith blurted, nodding.

“Please!” Erica added. “It hasn’t even been a day and I feel like I’m bouncing off the walls!”

Buffy changed her shirt and pulled her hair up into a ponytail, smiling to herself. She felt more introspective with each passing hour, and she knew it was because she wasn’t forced to deal with Chimera anymore, she could be normal now. Or at least, close enough. “I want a burger.” She murmured to no one in particular. “And some ice cream.’ 

Sam smiled faintly, getting up and changing into his new clothes as well. “I want something different, something… I don’t know, lighter? A salad, or a wrap. I feel like half of what they fed us weighed me down.”

“I never ate the meat.” Rachel admitted. “I thought it was gross.” 

Sam gestured at her, nodding. “Right? It was like… greasy sludge, or… something.”

Buffy wrinkled her nose. “Maybe I’ll just have a salad, too.” She muttered. 

“No.” Dean shook his head at her. “Hey, Sammy? Shut the hell up.” 

Sam scowled at him before glancing at Buffy and clamping his mouth shut.

Jackson leaned back, smirking. “Well, I know what I’m getting. This place had better have pizza because I swear to god, I’m getting the biggest one they have and eating it by myself.”

Buffy’s stomach rumbled. “Well, I’m done talking about this.” She murmured. “I’m going to actually get food.” She left the apartment and walked down the stairs. 

Stuart was up in an instant, grinning. He pointed after Buffy. “I’m with her.” He said, and grabbed Thomas’ hand, tugging him along after her.

*****

Stiles finished his curly fries, still awestruck that such a thing existed. The waitress had recommended the side to him, and he was going to leave her a large tip as a thank you. “I’m never eating anything else.” He laughed. 

“I’m making you run double time, if you do.” Stuart told him, smirking at his younger brother, reaching out to pat his belly. “High metabolism or not, little brother.”

“I guess you might as well.” Stiles smiled. “I feel weird. Not in a bad way, I just keep thinking about what we would be doing today if we were still back there.” 

“Running more laps and getting sent out on missions.” Stuart muttered. “You two would probably be in training for your first missions.” He nodded at Scott.

“Is that what we’re going to be doing now, anyway?” Stiles asked. “I mean, we’re planning to make ourselves useful with what we can do, right? I’m not so sure what that is. You guys have had at least eleven years to learn things. We’re just...” He glanced at Scott, then looked back at Stuart. “Ordinary. In comparison.” 

Stuart shook his head. “You’re not. You’re really not.” He told them earnestly. “You haven’t really had a chance to show everyone what you can do, and that’s because your promotion came at the tail end of a clusterfuck. But the one thing we learned while we were at Chimera is that no one is ever just ordinary, whether by comparison to another designate, or not.”

“We were Betas because we couldn’t pass the Alpha test.” Stiles murmured. “They changed the criteria. That’s how we passed.” 

“No.” Thomas glanced at Stuart, then looked back at Stiles. “Cut the bullshit. You deliberately failed your test when you were five. We already know. You took yours the day after we took ours, and Lydia told us about it the other day because she thought we didn’t know.” 

Stiles stared back at Thomas, but didn’t say anything. 

Scott reached out, placing a hand lightly on top of Stiles’. He took a deep breath and said, softly, “Yes. That’s true. As far as Stiles goes, I mean. He failed the test on purpose.” He looked over at his best friend. “For me. He stayed back for me.”

“You were smart enough, even at that age, to know that you two would be separated.” Thomas told Stiles. “You were the first one that figured that out. The rest of us just wanted to pass the test or win the game or whatever we thought we were doing.” 

Stiles nodded, his gaze on Scott as he spoke to Stuart and Thomas. “Yeah. The idea of... I mean, Scott and I have pretty much been inseparable since the day I was born.” He laughed dryly. 

Scott squeezed Stiles’ hand and leaned against the other boy, exhaling softly. “How long have you - the two of you. How long have you been… you? Together, I mean?”

“A couple of years now.” Thomas said quietly. “I went on my first mission and I didn’t like it. I didn’t like being away from Stuart and there were... it didn’t go as expected. When I got back to the base, I didn’t want him to leave my side for even a second. I got over that, but I was lucky that he didn’t hit me for kissing him, that first time.” 

Stuart smiled faintly, turning to look at Thomas. “Why on earth would I have hit you for kissing me when I wanted you to do it so badly?” He asked, threading their fingers together. He lifted Thomas’ hand and kissed the back of it softly.

Scott smiled a little. “How long did you want him to do it?” He asked.

Stuart didn’t take his eyes off of Thomas. “Since the first minute I realized I’d go insane without him by my side. That same mission he took… We didn’t want to be separated, and the second it was assigned to him, I knew it would be way too long before I saw him again. I didn’t… I was a mess.”

Thomas smiled at Stuart. “So I got back and they gave me a physical. As soon as they released me, I ran the whole way back to Alpha sector, to find you.” He had been speaking to Scott at first, but he kept his gaze on his lover, and it became a recollection instead of an explanation. 

Stuart laughed softly. “My hearing is exceptional. I heard Thomas running the minute he touched back down on Chimera grounds, and I was waiting at the doors for him. He came running into full view of the hallway and slid into a wall, before he twisted and came right at me. I caught him the second he got close and the next thing I knew, I was on the ground and he was on top of me, and then we were…” He let out a little sigh, a dreamy smile on his face.

Lydia had been eavesdropping from the next booth. She twisted around and got up on her knees to peer over the divider separating them. “That sounds really romantic.” 

Stuart grinned faintly, letting out a soft laugh. “It was. What followed was probably more animalistic and less romantic, but it doesn’t mean we didn’t like it just as much.”

Scott let out a laugh, staring at his hand over Stiles’ and trying to deduce what the emotions Stuart and Thomas must have felt would have been like. He tried to imagine Stiles being taken away on missions for undetermined periods of time, and a sick, gaping feeling dropped in the pit of his stomach. He clutched Stiles’ hand a little tighter.

Stiles gave Scott a concerned smile. He turned his hand over slowly and let Scott’s palm rest against his, thinking of Romeo and Juliet and how illicit it had been when it was written, just for two people to do this much. He took a deep breath and looked back at Stuart and Thomas as he used his free hand to bring another curly fry to his mouth. “So, did you guys seriously do that in the hallway?” He blurted, laughing. 

“Which time?” Thomas grinned. “You already know that none of us have any shame, we haven’t had time or space enough for it. The other Alphas around us got annoyed sometimes with us for being particularly... enthusiastic about things. But one thing you didn’t even get the privilege of being told before we had to run was that they expected us to have sex once in awhile. They never demanded it and they weren’t looking for us to procreate, we had birth control measures for a reason. But that was mostly to make us bond with one another. It’s a military tactic.” 

Stiles nodded. “I’m aware of that much.” He smiled ruefully. “And I know that some Betas used that as an excuse to be kind of vocal. But for us, high school was still... like it is in movies and on tv. We had classes, we had homework, we went for walks around the building instead of going out on dates, but that was as close as it got. And by ‘we,’ I mean other Betas. Not me. Not for dating.” 

Stuart nodded in understanding. “Well…” He started casually. “Maybe they assumed you were already spoken for.”

“Why would they think that?” Stiles blinked. 

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Lydia muttered. 

“Really?” Stuart asked, blinking back at Stiles. “Little brother, check yourself.” He nodded at Scott blatantly, but didn’t add anything else.

Scott’s head cocked to the side in confusion. “Huh?”

Thomas reached over carefully and gestured to their linked hands like he was showing off something on The Price is Right. “This. This is why.” 

“But we’ve always done this.” Scott protested, staring down at his hand with Stiles’. “Since we were old enough to even hold hands.”

“And you don't think maybe that’s why nobody ever bothered showing an interest in you?” Lydia asked softly. “Because they figured you were both unavailable?” 

Scott opened his mouth, looking at Stiles uncertainly. “I… I never really considered it.” He admitted.

Stiles stared back at Scott. “But that doesn’t make any sense.” He said finally, looking at Stuart, Thomas and Lydia. “Because girls hold hands all the time. It’s stupid to think that just because we’re guys, we’re not supposed to.” 

“But it’s not just the hand-holding.” Stuart said. “Have you two ever really noticed the way you are with each other? The hand-holding is a thing, yeah, but there’s hair stroking and plenty of staring. You two look consumed with each other.”

“You look like you’re in love.” Lydia added, but she sounded more envious than mocking. 

Scott looked down. “I don’t think Stiles sees me like that.” He said softly.

“Why do you think that?” Stiles asked, just as quietly. 

“You’ve never really said anything. You don’t… you don’t smell any differently than you do when we’re together.” He looked at Stiles. “Not like you do when you see someone you are attracted to.”

“But I do like you.” Stiles insisted. “I more than like you.” 

Scott stared at him. “But - why haven’t you ever said anything?”

“Because I didn’t think it would make a difference.” Stiles murmured. “I didn’t think you wanted me.” 

Scott opened his mouth. “I… think I always kind of have.” He said. “I just never thought about it until now.”

Stiles faltered, then smiled faintly at Scott. “Do you want to go talk about this?” 

Scott nodded, and stood, reaching for Stiles’ hand automatically. “Now. I want to talk about it now. Please.”

Stiles got up from the table, not letting go of Scott’s hand. “Let’s go talk outside.” He murmured, his smile widening. 

Scott nodded and smiled back, tugging his best friend toward the door.

Stuart rubbed at his forehead, shaking his head and smiling. “Idiots.” He said, grinning.

Thomas laughed and kissed Stuart. “Not everybody is us.” 

Stiles turned toward Scott when they got outside, and he leaned against the wall of the building. “How long, really?” He asked, staring at his friend. 

Scott stepped closer to him. “I just started thinking about it, minutes ago. When Stuart and Thomas were talking about how they got together. I started thinking about how I would have felt with you being away on a mission, where I wasn’t sure if you’d be coming back or not, and I felt sick. I felt… I couldn’t have dealt with it, Stiles.”

“Yeah. The idea of being separated from you made me feel sick.” Stiles agreed. “I love you.” 

Scott beamed, flinging his arms around Stiles a split second later. He rested his head on Stiles’ shoulder, hugging him tightly. “I love you, too.”

Stiles tensed, but not in fear or anything negative. He pulled away slightly and turned his head to kiss Scott. 

Scott cupped Stiles’ face and kissed him back eagerly.

Stiles put his arms around Scott, sighing against his mouth. 

Scott whimpered softly, hugging Stiles tightly against him. His kiss deepened.

“Do you want to go... back to the loft?” Stiles asked softly. “I mean, I do.” 

Scott gulped. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.” He nodded, clutching at Stiles. He nuzzled the other boy gently, exhaling. “I want to.”

Stiles walked toward the loft with Scott, glancing at him and grinning. “I really should’ve said something sooner.” He nodded, laughing. “I’ve wanted you for so long, it felt like it was just part of who I am, that I’d love you forever and you’d never love me back.” 

Scott laughed softly, shaking his head and leaning into Stiles’ side. “I’d always love you. Nothing could stop me from loving you, even if I didn’t know for sure that I loved you that way or not.” He took Stiles’ hand again. “I feel so stupid. We could’ve been together this whole freaking time, kissing and… doing other things.” He shook his head.

“Well, we can now.” Stiles murmured. He kissed Scott again. “I think I realized how I felt when we were about eight.” He admitted. “Lydia named me and I felt like I could barely stand still, I just wanted to tell you that I wasn’t one-oh-one anymore.” He smiled. “And the first time I thought of you differently, like for sex? We were about twelve.” 

Scott grinned at him, his cheeks going red. “Really?” He blurted. He kissed Stiles back softly. “I can’t remember any one time that I wasn’t thinking about you one way or another. I told Lydia I wasn’t reacting like you and Alec were, without the suppressants, and she thought maybe it was because I had you. Because I’d put my hand on your skin, and you’d calm down. And she thinks you’d do the same for me.”

“Maybe.” Stiles mused. “It just feels like I would have parts of me missing if you were gone. You’ve been in my life for as long as I can remember anything, and I mean, I named you.” He faltered, blushing. “I wasn’t ever going to tell you that. I guess it doesn’t matter now.” 

Scott stared at him, slack-jawed. “You named me?” He said softly, reaching up to touch Stiles’ face. “You’re the one who gave me my name?”

Stiles nodded. “I’m not supposed to be able to, but there was this girl going around, all wide eyes and no brain, I swear to god, and she was giving other Betas names like Rainbow and Princess. Princess was a boy.” He grimaced. “I told her that if she didn’t listen to me and name you what I said to name you, I was going to demand to retake the test and become an Alpha myself, and then I’d get her while she was sleeping. She cried, but she did what I told her.” 

Scott covered his face, laughing. “Oh my god. No wonder she’d been all red-eyed when she finally named me. You’re ridiculous.” He dragged Stiles closer, kissing him fiercely. “Thank you for saving me from a horrible, grossly-named fate.”

Stiles kissed back. “There was no way I was calling you Princess for the rest of your life. Or whatever else she had in mind. Teddy Bear. I don’t know.” He laughed. 

Scott grimaced, thinking of what Erica had called Scott and Sam before. “Puppy dog.” He blurted, looking disgusted.

“See, I wasn’t going to let that happen.” Stiles murmured. “Now come on, we have things to do.” He laughed. 

Scott’s grin widened, rushing toward the flat and tugging Stiles behind him.

When they made it back to the loft, Stiles turned and started getting undressed, his arms getting caught in his sleeves. He laughed, swearing as he worked to get the fabric off of himself. He could have easily just torn the shirt, but he didn’t want to. 

“Don’t tear the clothes!” Scott blurted out, laughing and echoing Stiles’ thoughts. “We went through too much to steal them already.” He chucked off his own clothes and pressed closely to Stiles, wrapping his arms around the other boy’s neck and closing his eyes contentedly. “I think I could seriously be happy just doing this.” He breathed out.

“I’d say me too,” Stiles teased. “But not right now. After. Because I want to do this.” He brought his hand down to Scott’s cock, stroking him slowly. 

Scott’s head dropped forward, and he let out a whimper, resting his forehead on Stiles’ shoulder. His hips moved against Stiles’ hand instinctively, his hands moving for Stiles’ own dick. His fingers wrapped around the length slowly, and he tugged gently, mouthing at Stiles’ shoulder.

Stiles whimpered softly, rubbing Scott’s back as he closed his eyes. “I like your hands on me.” He whispered, feeling a little nervous. 

Scott whined softly, curling as much as he could against Stiles. “I like your hands on me,” he replied, nibbling at Stiles’ throat.

Stiles started to tilt his head back, but changed his mind and moved forward a little to kiss Scott’s lips again. 

Scott kissed him back eagerly, parting his lips and pressing his tongue against Stiles’ bottom lip.

Stiles smiled around Scott’s tongue and met it with his own, sighing. “Lay down with me?” 

Scott nodded and let go of Stiles, leading them both toward the pile of blankets on the floor that were serving as a mattress. He wrapped his arms around Stiles tightly, nuzzling him. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” Stiles shifted his weight a little, spreading his legs apart. “Come here and... I just want to do everything.” 

Scott settled between Stiles’ thighs, nodding. “Me, too. I want everything with you.” He murmured, kissing Stiles’ chin.

*****

After dinner, instead of walking toward the loft, Stiles walked toward the police station with Buffy and Faith. After the way the Sheriff had reacted to Dean, he had decided not to come back for awhile. 

Faith walked down the sidewalk and into the police station backwards, facing Stiles and Buffy. “Thanks for bringing me along to see Sheriff Hotty McDILF again.” She grinned. Cocking her head to the side, she squinted. “Do you think he is a dad? Can he be a DILF if he isn’t?”

“D can stand for Dude.” Stiles smiled. “Or Dick. Because that’s the point anyway, right?” 

“He’s a friend.” Buffy protested. “An adult male friend. No lusty feelings.” 

“Plenty of lusty feelings.” Faith corrected, bouncing in place. “Wonder if he’d dig it if I just jumped in his lap. I don’t remember seeing any pictures of a chick in that office. Or kids for that matter. Maybe he’s lonely. Or horny.” Her eyes glinted in excitement. “Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve blown anyone?”

“Faith, there are four guys living with us that you can tackle with your mouth when we’re done here.” Buffy pointed out. She ignored the deputies at their desks, wandering through the room to get to the Sheriff’s office. 

“But they aren’t adult, sexy grown-ass men!” Faith whined, following Buffy with a huff.

Stiles burst out laughing as Buffy turned toward Faith, a horrified expression on her face. 

Faith stopped, staring at her sister with a mischievous grin on her face. “What?”

Buffy shook her head and opened the door, smiling politely at John. “Hi. If we’re bothering you, we can come back. We kind of forgot to get the number for this place last night.” 

John raised his eyebrow, looking amused. “No, you’re not bothering me.” He said, and stood up. “Nice to see you again.”

Faith beamed at him, leaning over the desk and staring up at him. “Nice to see you.”

Buffy rolled her eyes and sat down in the chair she had been in before. 

“Hey.” Stiles greeted the Sheriff, nodding to him. 

John tilted his head, squinting at Stiles. “Hi. Nice to meet you…” He trailed off questioningly.

Stiles gave the man a confused smile. 

“This would be where you tell him your name.” Buffy said gently. 

“Oh! Right. I’m Stiles.” Stiles laughed nervously. “Sorry.” 

John chuckled. “It’s alright. Nice to meet you, Stiles. That’s… that’s a curious name.”

Faith hopped up onto John’s desk, kicking her feet. She helped herself to one of the mints on the desk, popping it in her mouth. “Lydia named him.”

“Alphas name themselves and the Betas.” Buffy added. “From what little we know about Omegas, they don’t get names. Just letters.” 

“I like my name.” Stiles murmured. “Trust me, it’s better than some of the other ones that Alphas gave out to other Betas.” 

“I probably don’t want to know, do I?” John asked, frowning. “Alright. Well, what news are you three bringing around for me today?”

“Nothing new, really.” Buffy admitted. “Just that we’re trying to figure out how to get started on some things. We’re waiting a few hours and then going back to Chimera to look for information for you.” 

“And I wanted to meet you.” Stiles spoke up. “I’m the one who planned out most of this stuff, anyway. I would have come with them before, but I was recovering. Gunshot wounds.” 

John pursed his lips together tightly. “I take it that I don’t have to tell you to be careful? Just because the building is decimated doesn’t mean that there aren’t still people lying in wait for survivors to return.” 

Stiles nodded, studying John for a moment before he spoke again. “Scott can run a mile in under a minute. Buffy is trained in at least five different martial arts. I know we obviously can’t dodge bullets, but we can heal pretty fast once they’re out of us. We’ll be okay. But, uh, thank you?” 

John held his hands up. “You gotta remember - I look at you guys and I don’t see lethal weapons.” He said quietly. “I see kids. Kids that could belong to any one of my deputies, or any one of my friends. Kids that shouldn’t have to be involved in stuff like this. It’s a shame that you are, and there’s no taking back what’s already been done, but… the feeling doesn’t change.”

Buffy turned toward Faith, one eyebrow raised as she looked at her sister. ‘Does this answer your question?’

Faith scowled at her. “Feelings change.” She muttered under her breath, folding her arms across her chest sullenly.

John ignored her. “Either way, just… You can take care of yourselves, and you can heal fast. So that’s good. But, uh… that doesn’t mean you’re immune to other things. So… be careful anyway.”

Stiles nodded. “We will be.” He bit his lip. “I’m not saying that we want to, but if we wanted to go about getting ourselves declared legal citizens and have last names and everything, how would we do that?” 

John furrowed his brow, frowning a little. “Well… that might be a little difficult. Hopefully, this… Chimera place left documentation on you guys behind, and hopefully, it includes documents of birth. As for last names… Well, I suppose you could make up your own? But once we’ve got those birth documents, we would need to create legal identification, driver’s licenses, state IDs, that sort of thing. From there, you’d need to fill out a form to get a social security number - presuming you want one, that is - and after that… Well, I suppose you’d be legal after that, wouldn’t you?”

“Yeah. If we want.” Stiles murmured. “It might be better if we don’t do that, since it would pretty much guarantee that we’re stuck in foster care.” 

“You’re all about - what? Sixteen?” John asked, studying the trio. “I hate to say it, but that might be best for you, too. If you’re planning to form your own company, better that the government not be completely aware of you.” He said quietly.

“Yeah.” Stiles said again. “Do you have anything you need us to do, maybe?” 

Buffy started to feel anxious, shifting her weight onto her feet in case she needed to get up in a hurry. She felt that they could trust the Sheriff, but knowing that he was aware how young they actually were made her want to run. 

John leveled a knowing stare in Buffy’s direction, but there was no malevolence to it. “I don’t have any plans to turn you in.” He told her after a moment. “If you aren’t certain, you’re more than welcome to check my office for cameras or other devices. I’ve got nothing to hide.” He gave her a faint smile. Turning toward Stiles, he added, “I can’t think of anything right at this moment, but I’m sure I will eventually.” 

Stiles nodded. He turned toward Buffy. “Do you want to go?” 

Buffy nodded back and stood up. “We’ll... we’ll come back. Eventually.” She murmured, moving past Faith and Stiles. She left the office, not stopping until she was outside. 

Faith stared after Buffy for a moment, and then sighed, saluting the Sheriff. “See ya, boss.” She told him, following after her sister and wrapping an arm around Buffy’s shoulders when she caught up. “What’s going on, Buff? You okay?”

“I don’t know, I just feel like we should get out of here.” Buffy smiled grimly. “I still think we can trust him, but something felt off.” 

“Like what?” Faith asked. “About him? Look, all joking about wanting to bang him aside, he doesn’t seem like any kind of threat. He just seems kinda…” She thought silently for a moment. “Worried? I guess?”

“I know, but there are thirteen of us and it’s not...” Buffy sighed. 

“Not what?” Stiles asked. “Not his problem? We made it his problem the second we came in here. And by we, I mean you.” He snorted and shook his head. “If we need to go, then we need to go. But I’d rather find Harris, Brunski and Deucalion and stop them.” 

“Same here.” Faith murmured, rubbing Buffy’s shoulder gently. “Come on, sis. Stiles is right - we dragged the good sheriff into this. We need to deal with it.” She hugged the blonde gently.

Buffy hugged back, then pulled away and smiled faintly. “Okay, I’ll just go apologize and we can go home after that.” She went back into the station. 

Faith leaned against Stiles, yawning. “I love her, man, but she can be really damn paranoid. Wish I knew what set her off.” She frowned.

“It’s probably nothing.” Stiles mused. Since the thirteen of them had gathered in the loft, they had been in each others’ space deliberately, and he felt comforted by it. “He’s not... uh, part of our pack.” 

“Yeah, that’s…” Faith nodded. “That must be what it is.” She tapped her foot, several minutes passing before she wiggled impatiently. “What the hell is taking her so long?” She asked, scowling and standing up.

Stiles opened the door and leaned in, looking around. 

Buffy twisted around in her seat, gesturing to the officers surrounding her. “Run, Stiles!” 

Stiles turned, nearly tripping over his own feet as he started to run. 

Faith cursed. “Fuck, no!” She blurted, trying to push past Stiles to get into the building. “Why the hell does this keep happening?!”

John stepped out of the office, frowning at his deputies. “What the hell’s going on here?”

“We just asked to see some identification.” One of the deputies smiled. “She refused and tried to leave, so we figured we should detain her. She won’t answer our questions.” 

John gave him an irritated look. “Does it look like anyone around here is in danger from her? Has she committed any crimes, that you would need to see her ID? She was in here visiting me, and she came back in to remind me that my sister is wanting me to visit for dinner tonight. Are you really going to try and detain my niece for that?”

“We didn’t know.” Another deputy looked apologetic. 

“If she’s your niece, when’s her birthday?” The first deputy demanded. “You’ve never mentioned her before and I don’t remember ever hearing about a sister of yours, either. I’ve already called CPS, I know this girl isn’t related to you.” 

Buffy snapped the chain on the handcuffs, shifting her weight to her left arm as she kicked out with her right leg, sending the first deputy staggering backward. “I just wanted to go home, but you had to make that impossible.” She grumbled, grabbing a stapler from the desk beside her as she moved forward, toward the other deputies. She pulled the stapler apart to use as a makeshift weapon, for lack of anything else. She still refused to touch guns. “Let me walk out of here with my brother and sister, and we’ll leave you alone. We’re not here to cause trouble, you just made it so I didn’t have another choice.” 

John narrowed his eyes at the first deputy, moving alongside Buffy and clearing a path among the rest of his officers. “Funny that you mention never hearing me speak about her or my sister before because I tend not to speak about any family while I’m at work. And if you’d been here for any decent length of time, you would be aware of that.” He set a hand on Buffy’s shoulder. “And for your information, her birthday is January nineteenth. Sweetheart, go on, get your friends and get out of here. Tell your mother I’ll be over when my shift ends, okay?”

Buffy nodded, smiling. “Bye, Uncle John.” She walked back outside, hoping that everyone was still too dazed to realize she had snapped the handcuffs. 

“Jesus.” Stiles muttered. “We need to make sure we’re not followed. Unless they already know where we are? CPS. Fuck.” 

Faith wrapped her arms protectively around Buffy. “Fuck. Just - fuck.” She muttered, rubbing at her eyes. “Shadows? Back alleys?” Her voice was as quiet as she could make it as she spoke. “They can’t know where we are, that dickhead said he called CPS, yeah, but he can’t have laid eyes on us until we walked in there. Goddammit, we’re gonna need to lay really low from now on, aren’t we?”

“The Sheriff has some of our phone numbers, he’ll call and we can meet him somewhere if he has anything to talk to us about.” Buffy murmured. “I shouldn’t have gone back in, I just wanted to talk to him. To apologize.” 

Stiles put his arm around Buffy’s shoulders, under Faith’s arm. “It’ll be okay.” He kissed the side of her head. “You didn’t do anything wrong, that cop just had a massive stick wedged up his ass. I say we go home, rest, and just figure out what we’re doing tonight and tomorrow. Do you still want to invade Chimera tonight?” 

“I think we have to.” Buffy sighed. “We need to get information to John, and we can’t do that while we’re sitting around and hiding. I think we should all go and just deal with anyone in our way. Knock them unconscious, I mean. I don’t want anyone to get shot ever again, but nobody can shoot all thirteen of us at once, and we can get the gun away from someone.” 

“I don’t think everyone has your stance on weapons.” Stiles said gently. “Dean and Sam don’t, I know that for sure.” 

“But I think Scott and Rachel are definitely with you on the ‘no gun’ thing.” Faith pointed out helpfully, squeezing Buffy’s arm and resting her cheek against the blonde’s head.

Stiles opened the door to the building when they got there, going in behind Faith and Buffy and following them up the stairs. He didn’t want to spend the rest of his life hiding and not having any legal right to anything, but he figured he would just have to wait another two years and deal with it later. “Okay, we have a problem.” He called out, when they were in the loft again. “At least one of the deputies is on a power trip and called CPS. The Sheriff pretty much told him to fuck off and let us go, but we need to stop stalling and go back to Chimera. Get what we need, take it to him and then maybe get the hell out of here, I don’t know.” 

Jackson was on his feet in an instant, cursing quietly. “Well, that’s just fucking wonderful.” He muttered.

Stuart frowned. “CPS got called? How in the hell would CPS have even been an option, unless - did the sheriff guess how old we were?”

“No, dude. Listen.” Stiles sighed. “The Sheriff doesn’t care how old we are, he doesn’t want us dealing with CPS and foster care, he knows that means we’d be split up. The deputies are the assholes.” 

“But it means that someone was listening in on you.” Stuart protested. “Someone heard you talking to the sheriff about… whatever the hell it was you were talking about, and they called CPS on us.” He reached for Buffy worriedly, checking her over. “Are you three alright? Did anyone follow you back?” He asked. 

“Nobody followed us.” Buffy assured him. “I think I’m okay. I just want to go back, get what we need, take it to John, and then...” 

“Bail.” Stiles finished for her, nodding. “We probably can’t hang around here, right? We’re too close to this shit. We need to go somewhere else. Just... not Seattle and not Los Angeles.” 

“Well, where the fuck are we gonna go?” Erica protested. “Don’t say anywhere in the central United States, I’m not made to go walking around and looking country, okay? I have to be near a city! I have to be near shopping!”

“We could head for New York.” Alec said carefully. “But that would mean losing our only ally right now, and that’s the sheriff. Unless he’s willing to uproot himself and travel with us, which I doubt.”

“If we’re staying, we need to have money. We need electricity and running water.” Thomas murmured. “We need jobs. We need an address. An adult that will vouch for us. Maybe that’s the Sheriff, maybe it’s not. We need... last names. We need to try to integrate with actual society.” 

“Should we all have the same last name?” Rachel asked, confused. “I don’t know what to do. But we’re all siblings, right? So it makes sense.” 

“But would anyone actually believe that we’re all siblings? The different hair colors alone will make them look at us sideways.” Erica sighed. “Maybe if we say half of us are siblings, and the other half are cousins? I don’t know.”

“Gear up.” Dean called out. “We’re leaving in the van in twenty and taking the tunnels back.” 

Buffy nodded to Dean. She picked up some daggers and sheathed them in holsters, then buckled the belt around her waist. 

Dean sat down and started loading guns, a determined look in his eyes. He glanced up, looking around the room. “One of you makes the plan, yeah? We’re just arming ourselves.” 

“Stick together.” Thomas murmured. He sighed. “I don’t know, I’ve never gone on a mission with more than two or three people, I’m not sure how to do this.” 

Stiles stood up and started handing out flashlights and weapons. “Keep to the sides of the tunnel when you walk. Don’t go in a straight line, and don’t march like we’re running a drill. If we follow their training to take them out, they’ll see it coming and they’ll use it against us. If you see anyone that isn’t us, shoot to injure if you’re from a distance. Go for the achilles tendon if you’re close-range. They can’t follow if they can’t walk. Disarm anyone you incapacitate. Take away their communication. If they don’t have a radio, they have a voice. If you can’t knock them unconscious, you can hit them in the throat. It’ll suck for them to have a bruised voice box, but they’ll live. If you can’t leave someone alive, then don’t. Don’t hesitate, don’t feel guilty. They signed up to control the lives of two hundred and fifty children, they were ready and willing to murder us for the slightest transgression, and they slaughtered our brothers and sisters just because they didn’t like that we took an interest in their operations.” He stopped speaking and stared at Lydia and Rachel, thinking. “I want you two and one of the gun-wielders to stay at the top of the stairwell, keeping an eye on the tunnel and the hallway. We’ll need a clear path back. If a guard or one of the white coats shows up... those are the guys you can shoot to kill.” He said darkly. “And if it gets too bad, Lydia, you scream. I don’t think you’ll even need to do it over the walkies, I have a feeling we’ll hear it. Everybody else, you hear a scream, you run back to the tunnel.” 

“You’re scary when you’re in charge.” Buffy teased, reaching over to ruffle Stiles’ hair. 

“But effective.” Thomas remarked, giving Stiles an awestruck look. “What about the rest of us?” 

“Teams of two and three.” Stiles murmured, surveying the rest of the pack. “Sam, you’ll be with Lydia and Rachel.” He could see Dean nodding out of the corner of his eye, so he continued. “The central hub is where we were all born. If there are records, they’re most likely being kept there. Alec and Erica, you’ll go there. Erica, you’ll hack the system and get any information you can find. Take a bag. Copy their files onto USBs. Alec, you keep her alive, then get her out of there safely when she has what she needs. Go straight to John. Don’t let the deputies get in your way, but don’t kill them. Just knock them unconscious if they try to stop you. Stuart, you and Thomas go back to the Omega building. You’re already familiar with the layout and you know what you’re looking for there, records of sales or tracking devices, uploadable personality... things. Whatever the hell they’re doing, we need physical proof for that, not just records or files. Get pictures of the chairs, too. Bring whatever you can with you, though. However they’re getting into our heads, physical evidence is better than just having pictures, yeah? And then same thing, take the evidence and get out.” He looked around at the others. “Buffy, Faith and Jackson can search the Alpha sector for anything. Hormone suppressants. Labeled bottles, even if they’re empty. Designation labels on the bunk beds or tags on underwear or anything. And I’ll go with Scott and Dean to the Beta sector, where we’ll look for the same sort of thing. Textbooks, too. Scantrons that have been filled out and the test booklets. Lab coats. Uniform shirts. Anything that counts as proof. Take a backpack or messenger bag and fill it. Everybody.” 

“What’s our escape plan, oh mighty leader?” Lydia teased, but she was proud of Stiles as she listened to him. She knew that if Scott and Stiles had been Alphas from the beginning, Chimera would have capitalized on his understanding of war tactics and would probably have seized control of the United States. The thought made her shudder, but didn’t lessen her pride in her brother. 

Stiles squinted, thinking. “Erica, how long do you think it’ll take to copy files? Stuart, same question.” 

Erica cocked her head to the side, her mind racing, and she blew out a slow breath, shaking her head. “Depending on how much I’ll need to copy over… An hour at best, maybe anywhere from four to almost eight hours?”

Stuart nodded grimly. “And that’s if we’re lucky, and the data files aren’t encrypted beyond reckoning.” He added, pressing his lips together tightly. “We’ll need to bring multiple USBs regardless.”

Stiles groaned. “Okay, so we’ll just keep shuttling the full USBs back to John. So one of our teams of three can go find Stuart and Thomas when they’re done, and the other team can stay with Alec and Erica.” 

“So we’re just supposed to stand there and wait?” Lydia sighed in frustration. “The rest of you will get to move around, we’re just...”

Stiles rolled his eyes. “Lydia, you’re a warning system. You don’t put a smoke detector in a closet, it goes in the freaking kitchen.”

Scott snorted out a laugh, squeezing Stiles’ shoulder. “He’s got a fair point, Lydia. You’re essential.” He looked around at the group. “We all are. I don’t think we’re capable of failing, here.”

*****

Thomas eased the panel in the floor open, walking down the stairs to the actual Omega sector. The building above it had just been for show, but the wiring had been damaged in the explosion. He turned his flashlight on and moved the beam in a wide arc, stumbling backward when a brunette girl lifted a hand to shield her eyes. “Stuart, we have a problem.” 

“What’s going on?” Stuart asked, swinging around to look in Thomas’ direction. He faltered, his mouth hanging open. “Shit. Oh, shit.”

“Yeah.” Thomas muttered. He lowered his flashlight and moved toward the girl. “Hey, we’re not here to hurt you.” He held his free hand out slowly. “Okay?” 

“It’s been dark for a long time.” The girl stared back at Thomas. “But there was food in the fridge. We’re not supposed to get it, but L and K said they didn’t think anybody was coming back, so we had to have it. Are we in trouble?” 

“No, you’re not in trouble.” Thomas shook his head. “Can you show me where L and K are? And tell me what your name is?” 

“I’m M.” The brunette murmured. 

Stuart carefully reached a hand out to her. “Come on, little sister.” He said gently. “We promise - you’re safe, there’s no one here to hurt you.” He looked at Thomas. “We need you to help us find L and K, and then… then we’re going to bring you home.”

“But this is home.” M frowned. 

“No, it’s not.” Thomas shook his head, speaking softly. “It was, but we’re moving away. You can come live with us, and we’ll take care of you.” 

M stared at Thomas, then turned around and called out. “I think they’re okay! We can at least go get more food.” 

L crept out tentatively, peering around the corner at them. “More food?” He asked softly, and his stomach gave an audible rumble. He placed a hand over his belly. “Where did everyone go?” He asked Thomas and Stuart. “Why didn’t anyone come back?”

“There was a problem.” Thomas took a deep breath, glancing at Stuart before he looked back at L. “But we’re here now. We’ll take you to get something to eat, okay? Are you hurt?” 

“We heard loud.” K walked toward them, stopping to stand beside M. “Loud noises, then lots of pssh noises, then running. We hid.” 

Stuart exhaled, trying to resist the urge to step forward and gather the three into his arms. He nodded instead. “There were a lot of loud noises.” He agreed. “And it’s a good thing that you hid. It kept you safe. But we’re here now. We’ll keep you safe now, okay? Me and him, and all of your other brothers and sisters.” He gestured at them. “Come on, now. Let’s get you to a safer place.”

Thomas waited while the three Omegas went up the stairs ahead of him, then followed them and Stuart out of the decimated building. “We’ll have to rearrange our plans a little.” He told his lover. “Get someone to take them to safety. And food. They need to eat, they can’t just sit here for eight hours.” 

Stuart nodded, exhaling. “Who, though? I mean… I guess we can ask for volunteers.” He rubbed his eyes. “I thought they were gone. The ones that hadn’t been sent away with their brains wiped, I mean. The ones that were still in Omega sector… I thought they were all gone.”

“Well, they said they hid. And they’re sequential, so maybe they huddled together?” Thomas guessed. “I don’t recognize any of them. I mean, no clones I’m aware of.” 

“Same.” Stuart murmured, frowning. “K is… definitely not like the others.” He started, unsure of how to broach his thoughts. K had distinctly Asian features - something that nearly none of the other designates had. Stuart racked his brain, trying to remember if there was anyone else that had looked like K, but he couldn’t recall, shaking his head. “I think she, at least, was a one-off? Maybe the same for L and M.”

“It’s possible that they were born in ‘ninety-seven, right? Maybe they had moved on from whoever our other donor mothers were and they wanted to try other options? Maybe the files have information on her. But they’re not as... I mean, I think they were wiped and left behind.” Thomas opened the door to the main building, ushering the Omegas inside. “So they have some survival instincts, but not a lot. Not like we do.” 

Stuart swallowed roughly, staring at the trio. “Maybe we can teach them. Can we do that? I don’t - I hate the idea that they were basically left to fend for themselves.” He rubbed at his temples. “But… yeah, it’s possible. They might have been Chimera’s attempt to expand the program before they decided that they were better off using the Betas instead.”

“It’s possible too, that we just never saw their clones. Go ahead of me for a little bit, okay? I’m going to use the walkie to let everyone else know what’s going on, but I don’t want to scare these three. I’m pretty sure the noise they were talking about is radio static.” Thomas murmured. “I’ll find someone to get them out of here, and then you and I need to go back and do what we came here to do.” 

Stuart nodded and brushed his lips lightly against Thomas’. “I’ll keep them together until you come back. At the very least, I might be able to distract them with some candy.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew a packet of Skittles and a Snickers bar, wiggling them at Thomas with a shrug.

“Oh great, they’re mentally like toddlers and you’re giving them sugar?” Thomas teased. “I feel sorry for whoever volunteers to take them to the loft.” 

“I’m just trying to keep ‘em interested and quiet!” Stuart protested, pouting. “Besides, this little bit isn’t enough to account for a sugar high. They’ll get, what, eight Skittles and a third of a Snickers apiece?”

“They haven’t had much to eat in the last three days.” Thomas pointed out, but he smiled faintly and kissed Stuart again. “I’ll catch up to you in a few minutes. I think we should just let Rachel go home, and probably get Dean to help cover the tunnel. But I’ll let you know what’s going on when I find you.” 

Stuart grinned back at his lover, kissing him back slowly. “Sounds good to me.” He murmured. “Be careful, babe. I’ll see you in a little bit. With or without hyperactive Omegas.”

Thomas waited until the Omegas were far enough away to not be as intimidated by him using his radio. “Hey, we have a situation here. Stuart and I found some Omegas that were abandoned. They’re not injured, but they’re hungry and they’re still blank. I think it’s best to get them out of here and get them something to eat. Stuart’s leading them toward the tunnel now, but we haven’t finished looking for everything. This took precedence. So somebody needs to lead them back, and I think whoever does it should just take Rachel back with you, too.” 

Jackson’s voice crackled over the walkie. “I hear you, Thomas. I’ll meet them at the end of the tunnel and send Stuart back in your direction once I’ve got the O’s.”

“Thanks.” Thomas leaned back against the wall, sighing and closing his eyes for a moment. He felt sick to his stomach. After a long moment, he lifted his radio to his mouth again. “Hey, I don’t know who has a radio, but I think Dean should go wait with Sam and Lydia.” 

“Are you sure about that?” Sam’s voice came through. “What about Beta sector? What about Scott and Stiles?”

“We’ve been out here at least half an hour.” Thomas stood up straight and spoke again. “Nobody’s seen so much as a corpse, right? No guards, no techs? It seems like they bailed. How much have you guys managed to find, anyway?” 

“I’m checking all the files I can find in the hub. Kinda seems like Chimera cleared out as much as they could before they bailed, but they left traces of information behind, morons that they are.” Erica snorted. “It’s not as bad as I thought it would be. I’ve already managed to copy info to one USB, and there’s still a lot to go, but I think we’ve actually brought enough.”

“So you think we’re ready to go?” Stiles’ voice crackled in response. “We didn’t find much of anything here, either. We’ve got a couple of books, a test booklet, and a guard uniform. But if our big priority now is the Omegas, we should consider introducing them to John before we...”

Thomas gripped his radio tightly in his hand, wondering if his younger brother had run into trouble, but Stiles picked up where he left off. 

“Sorry, I was thinking.” Stiles explained. “I don’t know if it’s a good idea to leave them like that. They could probably still learn and adapt, but it would take them too long, wouldn’t it? Should we program them? Just to give them a better chance of taking care of themselves, if something goes wrong? If we end up dealing with CPS again, and we get split up, there could be hours or days before we can get to them, and they’d be on their own and dealing with all kinds of shit.” 

“I definitely don’t want that happening.” Sam muttered over his walkie, sighing. “It… might be something worth considering. This building’s obviously been abandoned. We could continuously come back here and get more information. And if we want time to think about… programming the Omegas, then…”

Jackson huffed on his end. “Are you gonna be the one to do it, then?”

“I’m not coming back here. I _am_ thinking about stealing a bulldozer and smashing every building until there’s nothing but dust.” Stiles laughed. “But if they could figure out how to program Omegas, so can we.” 

“I’m for it.” Erica piped up. “I’m also for a bulldozer hijacking. It sounds fun, and you’d better save me room on that thing.”

“Noted, I’ll bring you with me.” Stiles replied. 

“Fine.” Thomas sighed, shaking his head. “I think if you want to get out of here now though, you should go. But Stuart and I wouldn’t mind a little extra backup when we go back to the Omega building.” 

“You’ve got it.” Erica told him. “Stiles and I can joyride after we finish checking out the complex.”

Thomas started walking toward the stairwell that Lydia, Sam and Rachel had been guarding. Being by himself made him nervous, even though he was certain that there wasn’t any danger in the building.

“He made it.” Jackson’s voice alerted them. “Three Os, like Stuart and Thomas said, M, L and K. Sending your guy back to you, Thomas.”

“Thanks, bro.” Thomas smiled faintly as he waited for Stuart. He had no doubt in his mind that the other boy would be running to get back to him. 

Stuart appeared moments later, skidding a little down the hall before he stumbled toward Thomas. He held his hand out to his lover. “Alright. Let’s finish checking everything over, find anything else we need to find, and get the hell out of this creepy ass place.”

Thomas gripped Stuart’s hand. “We’re really done here for good after today, aren’t we? No more coming back?” 

Stuart lifted Thomas’ hand and kissed the knuckles. “If everything goes right? Hell no, we’re not coming back here.”

“We really need to think about life after this.” Thomas murmured, walking back toward the Omega building. “From what Buffy has told us, I don’t think this Sheriff is going to be all that enthusiastic about us having jobs like we did for Chimera. And school seems pointless, there’s nothing they can teach us that we don’t already know. Maybe the Omegas can go, but... we need money. And food. Electricity. I know I said this all before. It’s not like I just forgot about it.” 

“I know, babe.” Stuart murmured. “It’s something all of us definitely need to discuss. The Sheriff might not be happy about us going back to our usual type of job, but it’s our decision in the end, not his. It’d be great if he’d support us, but he’s not our boss. He’s sure as hell not our dad. He’s not anything to us right now but an authority figure that happened to go out on a limb for Buffy.”

“I’m just not so sure I’m in the mood to piss him off. He didn’t do this to us. Chimera did. Deucalion did.” Thomas pushed open the door that led outside. “We need people in authority that aren’t out to hurt or use us.” 

“It’d be good to have him on our side.” Stuart sighed, following Thomas blindly. “I’m just saying, he holds no sway over anything we do. If we continue to interact with him after this, then all we really need to do is keep open lines of communication for suspicious activities, ask him for advice, maybe let him come to us and ask us for advice, too… I don’t know, babe.” He shook his head. “Regardless of anything we do, it’s up to us to do it. I’d like it if we had support in law enforcement, though. You’re right about that.”

Thomas was quiet as he walked the rest of the way back to the ruined building. He gathered some scattered papers near a filing cabinet, reading over them after he turned on the light. “I’m kind of surprised that they didn’t cut the power. If it was me, that would be one of the first things I’d do. You can’t get hacked if you don’t give them access to it, and it seems almost like they left us some information on purpose. Just not enough that they felt the need to have armed guards. Like they wanted us to find it. It’s not a trap, it’s more like an offering. Or an incentive. Maybe that’s why they left these Omegas, too.” 

Stuart frowned. “Maybe they think we’d have problems trying to integrate. Maybe they left what they could to… I don’t know, entice us back? We’re the best at what we do. It would take them forever to train more people like us.”

“Yeah, except that they have more already.” Thomas glanced up at Stuart. “At least two other places like this. We need to stop them, too.” 

Stuart dropped his head to Thomas’ shoulder and groaned. “That’s going to be fun. I don’t even know where the hell to begin with that. Maybe there’ll be information, schematics of the other buildings, something in those files Erica’s getting that can help us, but…” He shook his head, huffing out a laugh. “I’m not the strategist. That’s… That’s Stiles, apparently. I just break firewalls and find information that people don’t want us to find, and even Erica’s better at that than I am.”

“But you’re good.” Thomas put his arm around Stuart. “I’ve seen you take down an entire corporation in less than ten minutes. I bet Erica’s never done that.” 

Stuart’s lips turned up into a faint smile. “Taking that oil company down was really satisfying, too.” He added, leaning against his boyfriend and sighing. “Give her some more practice, and a couple of more years, and she’ll be bypassing me. I feel old already.” He snorted.

“Well, that’s because you’re ancient.” Thomas teased, leaning toward Stuart for a kiss. “You’ll be hacking your own hearing aids in another month, old man. I’ll get you a cane for our birthday.” 

“I don’t want a cane!” Stuart protested. “I want one of those four-legged walker things with the tennis balls.” He kissed Thomas, tugging him close. “And dentures. Eventual dentures, I mean, my teeth are holding pretty strong.”

“You have to actually stay with me long enough for me to get you those.” Thomas laughed. “If you really feel like they’re the kind of thing to receive as a gift, anyway.” 

“I don’t know if people do or not.” Stuart snorted. “It’s a thought though, right? Elder gifts.”

“Yeah. ‘Congratulations, you’re senile.’ How long is this download going to take? Do we have time to make out?” Thomas grinned. “I know that other people are going to be joining us soon, so we can’t get entirely naked. But we’ve got nothing more to do except wait.” 

“I’m okay with making out.” Stuart replied promptly, and slid down against the wall until he was seated on his ass. He reached for Thomas with a grin. “It’s not like no one’s ever walked in on us before.”

“It was different before.” Thomas straddled Stuart’s thighs, facing him. “We didn’t have any space to ourselves. Now it’s not that I care that much about people seeing us, but we don’t have to let them.” 

Stuart ran his hands over Thomas’ thighs soothingly, staring up at his lover with a smile. “True. But still - we didn’t care when guards were watching us, and I could give less of a shit now.”

“I think you _want_ to have sex with me while other people watch.” Thomas accused, but he was smiling back at Stuart. 

“Oh, come on!” Stuart laughed. “You can’t tell me it’s not a brilliant idea. We look like twins. We probably are twins, save for a single genetic difference. People get off on the idea of twins fucking. I don’t know why, but we’ve both watched that sort of porn before.”

“Yeah, as part of our desensitization training.” Thomas muttered, shaking his head. “I don’t think they made us look at it to give us ideas, but at this point, anything is possible.” 

Stuart nuzzled Thomas’ neck gently. “Okay, so it’s an idea, but I’m not attached to it. I just really want you. Okay?”

“I didn’t say I was against it, either.” Thomas smiled. “I want you, too.” 

Stuart laughed quietly, tugging Thomas close to kiss him.

Thomas kissed back, reaching for the hem of Stuart’s shirt and pulling it up toward his chest. He slid a hand over his lover’s abdomen. “I just want to be normal.” He nodded. “I mean, as much as we can be, while still being together. I want to take you on dates and all of that sort of stuff.” 

Stuart inhaled shakily, his stomach jumping under Thomas’ touch. “I want that, too, babe.” He murmured, kissing Thomas’ chin. “Normal would… be interesting. A hell of a difference.”

“You wouldn’t make fun of me for getting you flowers or something, then?” Thomas tried not to laugh. “Or figuring out a way to pay for dinner for both of us?” 

“Figure out a way to get me computer equipment instead of flowers.” Stuart requested, laughing. “But I wouldn’t make fun of you. And I wouldn’t protest if you did get me flowers. But you better get me a vase to go with them. And some pretty ribbon.”

“I’ll keep all of that in mind.” Thomas murmured. 

“I love you.” Stuart told him, and closed his eyes as he leaned forward to kiss his lover.

“I love you, too.” Thomas whispered, his lips brushing against Stuart’s. 

“Aww, that’s cute.” Stiles interrupted, leaning over a table to look down at them. “I love too, bros. But we have to finish this and get the hell out of here.” 

Stuart dropped his head against Thomas’ shoulder. “I denounce you as my brother. You’re a demon. I hate you.”

Erica snorted, craning herself over the table to stare at them as well. 

“If that’s what it takes to keep you from trying to put your tongue in my mouth, I’m okay with it.” Stiles grinned. “Now, you can go back to what you were doing, knowing that Erica is going to be watching you and I’m not, but I won’t shut up the entire time... or you can get up and explain some of this stuff to me. And we have to tell you something, anyway.” 

Stuart looked up, narrowing his eyes at Stiles before he sighed and gently shifted Thomas off of him. He stood, extending a hand to his boyfriend. “Alright. Are you going to tell us now, or are you going to wait until we’re done with what we came here to do?”

“You tell them.” Stiles nudged Erica. “You’re the one that found the information, anyway.” 

Erica exhaled slowly. “Okay. So… It turns out that we’ve never really been that far off, calling each other brothers and sisters.” She said carefully, studying Thomas and Stuart. “There are several markers that I found in those files that… um, clarify a lot of things? Basically that…” She rubbed her eyes. “We all literally have the same dad. Different mothers, but the same male’s DNA is present in all of us.” She shifted a little.

Stuart frowned. “Who is it?” He asked quietly.

“It’s… It’s Deucalion.” Erica replied hesitantly.

Thomas was silent for a long moment. “All two hundred and fifty of us? And he gave the command to have us slaughtered?” 

Erica stared at Thomas and nodded, looking sick. “Yes. And yes. We were literally born to be experimented on, and… when he felt that we were compromising his plans, Chimera’s plans…”

“I kind of think we should find him and kill him. He’s so fixated on Greek mythology, that’ll teach him.” Stiles muttered. 

“Killing him won’t solve anything, Stiles.” Thomas sighed and shook his head. “I want answers.” 

Stuart glanced at him, raising an eyebrow. “So we capture him. Interrogate him instead.” His eyes hardened. “And then we can kill him.”

“What he said.” Stiles nodded, pointing at Stuart as he looked at Thomas. “Have you seen anything about other locations, or were there only the three we already know of?” 

Stuart rubbed a hand over his mouth. “I know there are at least four other locations. I’m not sure of _exact_ locations yet, not without studying the files properly, but…” He shook his head. “Three here on the West Coast, it stands to reason that with the population significantly less in the center of the country, the rest of the locations would be on the East Coast.” He paused. “Maybe Texas.”

“Ugh, Texas.” Thomas muttered, then smiled faintly. “We had to go there once, to deal with this guy that had three wives and about a dozen kids.” He paused. “In retrospect, Deucalion had no business sending us on that mission.” 

“Or any mission.” Stiles remarked. “Does it bother anyone else that... two hundred and fifty kids is like...” He trailed off. “A half gallon of sperm.” 

Thomas stared at Stiles, then started laughing. “Did you actually just do the math on that?” 

“Yeah.” Stiles admitted. 

Erica shook her head. “Your mind works in mysterious ways.” She sighed, looking at Stiles. She grinned a second later. “It’s a good way to fuck with people, honestly.”

“Well, I’m good at that, definitely.” Stiles laughed. “Let’s just go home, yeah? We’ll start making more plans in a few days. I just want to rest. And eat more curly fries.”

“And fuck your brother.” Erica sing-songed, jumping off the table and flouncing toward the exit.

Stuart blinked and then looked at Thomas in amusement.

Stiles hurried to catch up to Erica. “Yeah, like you don’t want to fuck any of our siblings, yourself.” He retorted. 

“Duh. Why do you think I’m willingly subjecting myself to birth control?” Erica snorted. “If I could figure out if I could get myself sterilized…” She trailed off. “... Deucalion, our sperm donor, encouraged us to fuck each other. “ She said abruptly, and swallowed roughly. “What if he’d decided to deliberately make the girls miss their birth control dosages, or gave us placebos or something? What if part of his plan was to make _us_ procreate, and then he’d have a whole new generation of kids to brainwash?”

Stiles turned around to look at Thomas. “Still think we shouldn’t kill him?” 

“I’ll reserve judgment for now.” Thomas muttered.


End file.
